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MONOGRAPHS

GARRICK, MACREADY, RACHEL.
AND BARON STOCKMAR

Snv^'^a.a^ 9>h. eT:

/ ncKi V J(i ni ck.

MONOGRAPHS

GARRICK,

MACREADY, RACHEL,

AND BARON STOCKMAR

BY SIR THEODORE MARTIN, K.C.B., K.C.V.O.

ADIHOR OF 'THE LIFE OF THE PRINCE CONSORT,' ETC.

LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.

1906

M36-YV^

[These monographs are in substance reprints of
S articles published some years ago : three of them
gin the Quartcrfij Kcvieic — 'David Garrick ' in
-June, 18G8, ' l^aron Stockmar' in November, 1872,
' Macready ' in June, 1 875 — and ' Rachel ' in Black-
wood^ s Magazine for September, 1882. The studies
were carefully made, and the only alteration in them
ffis the addition of certain details, with a view to
giving more completeness to the original sketches.]

CONTENTS

) AGK

DAVID GARRICK 1

WILLIAM CHARLES MACREADY - - - - yy

RACHEL i;)3

BARON SIOCKMAR - - - - - - 272

vii

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

DAVID CiARRK K ----- Frontispiece

From a contemixjrary portrait iu the possession of the
Author.

WILLIAM (HAKLES MACREADY - - To face p. ;)!)

As Heury IV., from a lithogi-aph by Richard Lane
after the picture by J. Jacksou, 11. A.

ELIZABETH F^LIX [RACHEL] - - - „ 103

From a medallion in the jwssession of the Author.

CHRISTIAN KRIEDRICH, BARON STOCKMAR- „ 272

From an engraving liy F. Holl, after the picture iu
I)09session of His Majesty the King, painted by
F. Winterhalter.

IX

DAVID GARRICK

In the familiar group of statesmen, wits, authors,
and artists, who represent the intellectual activity
and best society of England between 1740 and
1780, there is no more prominent or interesting
figure than that of David Garrick. It is con-
tinually brought before us in the correspondence
of Walpole and Gray ; in the memoirs of Cumber-
land, Madame d'Arblay, and Hannah More ; and
it is his name and doings which lend the chief
interest to the biographies of Macklin, 3Irs. Cibber,
Mrs. Bellamy, Tate Wilkinson, Charles Dibdin,
and others of his stage contemporaries.

In Boswell's * Life of Johnson ' he is a con-
spicuous figure. Boswell in his very first interview
with his hero, being then ignorant of Johnson's
strangely inverted love for the great actor, which
was constantly venting itself in splenetic sallies
against Garrick, but would never listen with
patience to a word said in disparagement of him
by anybody else, drew down upon himself one of
those surly rebuffs of which he was afterwards to
have so many. ' What do you think of Garrick ?'

1

2 DAVID GARRICK

said Johnson to Tom Davies, actor and bookseller,
and the futin'e biographer of Garrick, in whose
shop the meeting took place. ' He has refused me
an order to the play for Miss Williams, because
he knows the house will be full, and that an order
would be worth three shillings.' Garrick had given
the lady a free benefit at his theatre a few years
before, by which she had realized £200. ' Oh, sir,'
broke in the fussy Scotsman, not dreaming how
little Johnson meant by this sally, ' 1 cannot think
Mr. Garrick would grudge such a trifle to you.''
' Sir,' said Johnson, turning to him with a stern
look, ' I have known David Garrick longer than
you have done, and I know no right you have to
talk to me on the subject.'

The incident was typical. All through Boswell's
book Garrick's name provokes Johnson's sarcasm,
if other people praise ; or stimulates his praise, if
other people censure. But in which of the two
moods he was the more sincere we soon discover.
Johnson, it is true, never quite forgave his old
pupil and friend for a success so much more rapid,
and, in a worldly sense, so much more brilliant,
than his own. Garrick, on the other hand, under-
stood and made liberal allowance for the feeling,
stung although he often was, when the latent
grudge found vent in such phrases as ' What !
respect a player !' ' Feelings ! Pooh ! Punch has
no feelings.' But in a life of very diversified ex-
perience of what men are, Garrick had learned to

JOHNSON AND GARRICK 3

think more of a friend's virtues than of his failings.
He knew how much Johnson had had to bear,
both from the world and within himself. It was
not difficult for his sympathetic nature to com-
prehend, that Johnson would have been more than
human, had he felt no soreness when he contrasted
his own social position and unattractive person and
manners with those of the handsome and vivacious
actor, to whom not England only, but Europe
also, was continually offering up incense ; whose
society was courted by the ablest and best men
and most gifted and beautiful women of his time ;
who had achieved wealth honourably, and graced
it by the refinement of his tastes, and by the charm
and bounteousness of his hospitality. And, then,
he could not but be conscious tliat Johnson loved
him at heart, and in his better moods did him full
justice in such phrases as—' (rarrick has written
more good prologues than Dryden,' ' He is the first
man in the world for sprightly conversation.' Echoes
of such sentences as these were certain to reach
Garrick's ears, and we may be very sure, that in
one way or another he had many proofs of sincere
esteem and respect from a man. Mho spoke from
the warmth of conviction when he said, ' (iarrick
has made a player a higlier character,' and all his
successes, public and social, ' supported by great
wealth of his own acquisition. If all this had
happened to me, I should have had a couple of
fellows with long poles walking before me to knock

1—2

4 DAVID GARRICK

down everybody that stood in tlie way. Consider :
if this had happened to Cibber or Quin, they'd
have jumped oxer the moon. Yet Garrick speaks
to us !'

Garrick lias not been fortunate in his biographers.
He has had several, JMurphy, Davies, and Boaden
being the most important. The two first wrote
lives of him, which have gone through several
editions ; the last wrote a memoir, prefixed to two
bulky quartos of Garrick's correspondence, which
were published in 1831. Murphy and Davies knew
the great actor. They were members of his com-
pany at Drury T^ane — Murphy during a period
which, though brief, was long enough to satisfy
even his vanity that the stage was not the true
sphere for his versatile and ambitious genius, and
also to secure him an unenviable niche in Churchill's
'Rosciad'; and Davies from 1752 to 1762, when
he quitted the boards, partly through dread of
Churchill's sarcastic pen, partly because he found
he could not attend both to his shop and to the
business of the stage. ' Nobody,' said Johnson,
' can write the life of a man but those who
have ate and drank and lived in social inter-
course with him.' But a man may have done all
these things, and yet write a life very badly.
So it was with both Murphy and Davies, for
there was bitterness in their hearts of an old
standing. Murphy as a dramatic author, and
Davies as an actor, had fancied wrongs to avenge.

UNSATISFACTORY ' LIVES ' 5

and also the humiliation to resent of benefits
received and injuries forgiven ; and the leaven of
their ancient grudges tainted both their works.
But Murphy's, besides being venomous, is in-
accurate, and, what is more surprising in a man
whose dialogue in comedy was terse and sparkling,
it is extremely prosy. That of Da^^es, while much
less coloured by prejudice, and upon the whole
sensibly and agreeably \\Titten, is often incorrect in
its details, and far from complete in its treatment
of the subject. It was written at Johnson's insti-
gation, but it gave great offence to JNlrs. Garrick,
who was not likely to forget that her husband had
good cause to cut off the biographer from his
acquaintanceship. We should have had very
different books from both Murphy and Davies
could they have dreamed that their own letters to
Garrick, with the drafts of his rephes, had been
preserved, and were one day to rise up in judgment
against their ingratitude and injustice to one who
had shown them signal forbearance and loaded
them with repeated favours.

These letters, with the rest of Garrick's most
voluminous correspondence, which he had carefully
preserved and docketed, probably with a view to
an autobiography at some future date, were placed
in Boaden's hands to edit and preface with a
memoir. He Iiad not known Garrick either on the
stage or in private. Hut these documents, witli
such information as lie migiit have obtained from

6 DAVID GARRICK

INIrs. Garrick, whom he did know, were enough to
enable liim to produce a satisfactory Hfe. Boaden,
however, was not the man for the work. He had
neither the sympathetic imagination, the dis-
criminating judgment, nor the vivacity of style,
wliicli it demanded ; and his memoir is meagre
in details, and most colourless and jejune in treat-
ment.

That he did not even make a judicious selection
of tlie correspondence which he edited is now
certain. Most valuable much of it is, but not a
little could well have been spared to make room
for what he omitted. The whole correspondence
having very fortunately come many years after-
wards into the hands of the late Mr. John Forster,
was turned to excellent account in his elaborate
essays on Churchill and Foote, and also in his ' Life
of Goldsmith,' where he speaks of the letters as
forming the most striking and valuable contri-
bution that has yet been made to the great actor's
history.

These documents, and many other letters both
to and from Garrick which have since come to
light, together with the mass of pamphlets, abusive
as well as laudatory, of which Garrick, while
alive, was the theme, as well as the excellent
criticisms on his histrionic powers, both at home
and from abroad, furnish the materials for a
biography of the great actor and the stage of his
time in absolutely embarrassing profusion. But to

BIRTH 7

most readers a monograph on a smaller scale will
probably be more welcome, if only it shows the
man as he was known in his home and to his
friends, and also as the public saw him — the great
artist who influenced the English stage and the
pubhc taste more than any other actor has done,
and who by his natural gift of genius, cultivated to
its highest point by close observation and constant
study of life and character, reached the summit of
perfection in what Voltaire calls ' the most difficult
of all the arts.'

David Garrick was born at the Angel I mi,
Hereford, on February 19, 171(3. He was French
by descent. His paternal grandfather, David
Garric, or Gan-ique, a French Protestant of good
family, had escaped to England after the revoca-
tion of the Edict of Nantes, reaching London on
October 5, 1685. There he was joined in the
following December by his wife, who had taken a
month to make the passage from Bordeaux in a
wretched barque of 14 tons, 'with strong tempests
and at great peril of being lost.' Such was the
inveteracy of their persecutors that, in effecting
their own escape, these poor people had to leave
behind them their only child, a boy called Peter,
who was out at nurse at Bastide, near Bordeaux.*

* Madame Garric had Ijeen compelled openly to abjure
her religion, hut she lost no time after her amval in England
in making confession and atonement for having done so, as
appears from the following entry in the ' Livres des Actes

8 DAVID GARRICK

It was not till May, 1087, that little Teter was
restored to them by his nurse, INIary INIougnier, who
came over to London with him. By this time a
daughter had been born, and other sons and
daughters followed ; but of a numerous family
three alone sur\'ived — Peter, Jane, and David.
David settled at Lisbon as a wine merchant, and
Peter entered the army in 170G. His regiment
was quartered at lichfield, and some eighteen
months after he received his commission he married
Arabella, the daughter of the Rev. Mr. Clough,
A^icar Choral of the cathedral there. There was no
fortune on either side, but much affection. The
usual result followed. Ten children were born in
rapid succession, of whom seven survived. Of
these the third was David, who made his appearance
somewhat inopportunely, while his father, then a
Lieutenant of Dragoons, was at Hereford on re-
cruiting service.*

Lichfield was the home of the family. There

du Consistoire ^ (the governing body of the French Protestant
church in St. Martin's Lane) : ' D'^"^*^ 13, 1685. M'^"'^ Jeanne
Sarrazin femme de M' David Garric ayant ete forcee de
signer k Bourdeaux rabjuration de notre religion, sans etre
pourtant jamais allee a la Messe, en a temoigne a la Com-
pagnie un sensible deplaisir, et a consenti d'en faire publique-
ment la recognaissance, ce qu'elle fera Dimanche prochaine."'

* This same city claims the doubtful honour of giving
birth, sixty-six years before (February 2, 1650), to another
histrionic celebrity — Nell Gwynn. One of her grandsons was
a Bishop of Hereford.

EARLY AMBITIONS 9

was good blood on both sides of it, and they were
admitted into the best society of the place, and held
in deserved respect. David was a clever, bright
boy, of quick observation, apt at mimicry, and of an
engaging temper. Such learning as the grammar-
school of the town could gi\'e he obtained ; and his
training here, and at Edial some years afterwards
under his townsman Samuel Jolinson, produced
more of the fruits of a liberal education than
commonly results even from schooling of a more
elaborate and costly kind. The occasional visits of
a strolling troop of players gave the future Roscius
his first taste of the fascinations of the drama. To
see was to resolve to emulate, and before he was
eleven years old he distinguished himself in the part
of Sergeant Kite in a performance of Farquhar's
' Recruiting Officer,' organized for the amusement
of their fi-iends by his companions and liimself

iNIeanwhile the cares of a numerous family were
growing upon his parents. To meet its expenses,
his father exchanged from the Dragoons into a
marching regiment, and went upon half-pay. Peter,
the eldest boy, had gone into the navy ; and upon
the invitation of the uncle, whose name he bore,
young David, then only eleven, was sent to Lisbon,
apparently with the expectation that a provision
for life would })e made for him in his uncle's
business. Hut either his uncle had no such inten-
tion or the boy found the occupation distasteful,
for his stay in Portugal did not extend over many

10 DAVID GARRICK

months. Short as it was, he succeeded in making
himself popular there by his vivacity and talents.
^Vfter dinner he would be set upon the table to
recite to the guests passages from the plays they
were familiar with at home. A very pleasant
inmate he must have been in the house of his
well-to-do bachelor uncle. No doubt he was sent
home with something handsome in his pocket ; and
when, a few years afterwards, the uncle came back
to England to die, he left his nephew £1,000 — twice
as much as he gave to any others of the family.

Garrick's father, who had for some years been
making an ineffectual struggle to keep his head
above water upon his half-pay, found he could do
so no longer, and in 1731 he joined his regiment,
which had been sent out to garrison Gibraltar,
leaving behind him his wife, broken in health, to
face single-handed the debts and duns, the worries
and anxieties, of a large family. In her son David
she found the best support. His heart and head
were ever at work to soften her trials, and his gay
spirit doubtless brightened with many a smile the
sad wistfulness of her anxious face. The fare in
her home was meagre, and the dresses of its inmates
scanty and well worn ; still there were loving hearts
in it, which were drawn closer together by their
very privations. But the poor lady's heart was
away with the father.

' I must tell my dear life and soul,' she writes to
him in a letter which reads like a bit of Thackeray

TAUGHT BY JOHNSON 11

or Sterne, 'that I am not able to live any longer
without him ; for I grow very jealous. But in the
midst of all this I do not blame my dear. I have
very sad dreams for you . . . but I have the
pleasure when I am up, to think, were I with you,
how tender . . . my dear would be to me ; nay,
was when I was with you last. O ! that I had you
in my arms ! I would tell my dear life how much
I am his. — A. G.'

Her husband had then been only two years gone.
Three more weaiy years were to pass before she
was to see him again. This was in 1736, and he
returned, shattered in health and spirits, to die
within little more than a year. One year more,
and she, too, the sad, faithful mother, whose ' dear
life ' was restored to her arms only to be taken from
them by a sterner parting, was herself at rest.

During his father's absence Garrick had not been
idle. His busy brain and restless fancy had been
laying up stores of observation for future use. He
was a general favourite in the Lichfield circle —
amusing the old, and heading the sports of the
young — winning tlie hearts of all. Gilbert
Walmsley, Registrar of the Ecclesiastical Court,
a good and wise friend, wlio had known and loved
him from childiiood, took him under his special
care. On his suggestion, possibly by his help,
David and his brother George were sent as pupils
to Johnson's academy at Edial, to complete their
studies in Latin and French. Garrick and Johnson
had been friends before, and there was indeed but

12 DAVID GARRICK

seven years' difference in their ages. But Johnson
even then impressed his pupil with a sense of
superiority, which never afterwards left him ; while
Garrick established an ecjually lasting hold upon
the somewhat capricious heart of his ungainly
master. From time to time he was taken by
friends to London, where, in the theatres that were
to be the scenes of his future triumphs, he had
opportunities of studying some of the leading per-
formers, whom he was afterwards to eclipse. Even
in these early days the dream of coping with these
favourites of the town had taken possession of him.
But he kept it to himself, well knowing the shock
he would have inflicted on the kind hearts at home
had he suggested to them the possibility of such
a career for himself.

By the time his father returned from Gibraltar
Garrick was nineteen. ^V profession must be chosen,
and the Bar appears to have been thought the fittest
for a youth of so much readiness and address, and
with an obviously unusual faculty of speech. Some
further preliminary studies were, however, indis-
pensable. He could not afford to go to either
University, and in this strait his friend Walmsley
bethought him of a ' dear old friend ' at Rochester,
the Rev. JNIr. Colson, afterward Lucasian Professor
at Cambridge, a man of eminence in science,
as a person most likely to give young Garrick
the instruction in ' mathematics, philosophy, and
humane learning' which was deemed requisite to

FROM LICHFIELD TO LONDON 13

complete his education. To him, therefore, a
letter was despatched, asking him to undertake
the charge, from which we get an authentic and
agi-eeable picture of the young fellow's character :

' He is a very sensible fellow, and a good scholar,
nineteen, of sober and good dispositions, and is as
ingenious and promising a young man as ever I
knew in my life. Few instructions on your side
will do, and in the intervals of study he wiU be an
agreeable companion for you. This young gentle-
man has been much with me, ever since he was
a child, and I have taken much pleasure in instruct-
ing him, and have a great affection and esteem for
him' {' Garrick Correspondence,' vol. i., p. 1).

Mr. Colson accepted the proposal ; but, by the
time the terms had been arranged, another young
native of Lichfield, in whom W^almsley felt no
slight interest, had determined to move southward
to try his fortunes, and was also to be brought
under iNIr. Colson's notice. This was Samuel
Johnson, whose Edial academy had by this time
been starved out, but for whom London, the last
hope of ambitious scliolars, was still open. He had
written his tragedy of ' Irene,' and it had found
provincial admirers, AValmsley among the number,
who thought a tragedy in verse the open sesame to
fame and fortune. For I^ondon, therefore, .lohnson
and Garrick started together Joluison, as he used
afterwards to say, with twopence-halfpenny in his
pocket, and (Tarrick with three lialfpence in his,
a mocking exaggeration, not very wide, however,

14 DAVID GAIIRICK

of the truth. Wahiisley announced their departure
to Mr. Colson on March 2, 1737, in the often-quoted
words :

' He (Garrick) and another neighbour of mine,
one Mr. Johnson,* set out this morning for London
together ; Davy Garrick to be with you early next
week ; and Mr. .lohnson to try his fate with a
tragedy, and to see to get himself employed with
some translation, either from the Latin or the
French. Johnson is a very good scholar and poet,
and I have gi-eat hopes will turn out a fine tragedy
writer' (' Garrick Correspondence,' vol. i., p. 2).

For some reason not now known Garrick did not
go to Mr. Colson in a week. On reaching town he
lost no time in getting himself admitted to the
Honourable Society of I^incoln's Inn (March 19,
1737) by payment of the admission fee of £3 3s. 4d,,
the only act of membership which he appears ever
to have performed. He stayed in London with
Johnson for some time, and their finances fell so
low that they had to borrow £5 on their joint note
from one Wilcox, a bookseller and acquaintance of

* In 1769, when Garrick was one of the most notable men
in England, the letters of Walmsley to Colson were published
by Mrs, Newling, Colson's daughter. She sent the originals
at the same time to Garrick's friend Mr. Sharp, to be
forwarded to the great actor. In the very charming letter
to Garrick which accompanied them, Mr. Sharp says : ' If I
had called, as I sometimes do, on Dr. Johnson, and showed
him one of them where he is mentioned as one Johnson, I
should have risked, perhaps, the sneer of one of his ghastly
smiles "■ (' Garrick Correspondence,' vol. i., p. 334).

ROCHESTER 15

Garrick's, who afterwards proved one of Johnson's
best friends. Most probably Garrick's plans of
study under Mr. Colson were disconcerted by the
illness of his father, wlio died within a month after
Garrick had started from Lichfield. Nor was it
until the death soon afterwards of the Lisbon uncle,
and the opening to Garrick of his £1,000 legacy,
that he found himself in a condition to inciu' that
expense.

Late in 1737 he went to Rochester, and remained
with INIr. Colson for some months, but with what
advantage can be only matter of conjecture. Colson,
like the Rev. Josiah Cargill, as described by Meg
Dods in Scott's 'St. Ronan's Well,' was 'just
dung donnart wi' learning,' a man too much
absorbed in abstruse scientific studies to be the
fittest of tutors for a youth of the mercurial
temperament and social habits of Garrick, But
there was so much of honest ambition and natural
goodness of disposition in his pupil, that it may
safely be assumed he did not fail to profit by the
learning of the man, of whose peculiarities he must
Iiave been quite aware before he placed himself
under his charge. \Vhatever his progress in the
lifer(r humajiiores, Rochester was as good a field as
any for such a student of character and manners.
He certainly made himself liked in the family, and
Colson's daughter, Mrs. Newling, recalling herself
to Garrick's notice twenty years afterwards, speaks
of the great pleasure with which she reflects ' upon

16 DAVID GARRICK

the happy minutes his vivacity caused ' during his
stay with them.

Early in 1738 Garrick returned to Lichfield.
By this time his brother Peter had left the navy
and returned home. There were five brothers and
sisters to be provided for, so Peter and he clubbed
their little fortunes, and set up in business as wine
mercliants in Lichfield and London. David, by
this time tolerably familiar with the ways of town,
and not unknown at the coffee-houses where
his wines might be in demand, took charge of
the London business. Vaults were taken in
Durham Yard, between the Strand and the river,
where the Adelphi Terrace now stands, and here
Foote, in his usual vein of grotesque exaggeration,
used to say he had known the great actor ' with
three quarts of vinegar in the cellar calling himself
a wine merchant.'

Of Garrick at this period we get a vivid glimpse
from Macklin, an established actor, who was then
Garrick's inseparable friend, but was afterwards to
prove a constant thorn in his side through life, and
his most malignant detractor after death. Garrick
' was then,' as Macklin told his own biographer
Cooke, ' a very sprightly young man, neatly made,
of an expressive countenance, and most agreeable
manners.' Mr. Cooke adds, upon the same
authority :

' The stage possessed him wholly ; he could talk
or think of nothing but the theatre ; and as they

EARLY LITERARY EFFORTS 17

often dined togetlier in select parties, Garrick
rendered himself the idol of the meeting by his
mimicry, anecdotes, etc. With other funds of
information, he possessed a number of good travel-
ling stories ' (with which his youthful voyage to
Lisbon had apparently supplied him), ' which he
narrated, sir ' (added the veteran), ' in such a vein
of pleasantry and rich humour as I have seldom
seen equalled ' (Cooke's ' Life of Macklin,' p. 06).

There could be only one conclusion to such a
state of things. The wine business languished.
That it was not wholly ruined, and Garrick with
it, shows that with all his love of society he was
able to exercise great prudence and self-restraint.
' Though on pleasure bent, he had a frugal mind.'
Early habits of self-denial, and the thought of the
young brothers and sisters at Lichfield, were
enough to check everything like extravagance,
though they could not control the passion which
was hourly feeding itself upon the study of plays
and intercourse with players, and bearing him
onwards to the inevitable goal. Their society, and
that of the wits and critics about town, were the
natural element for talents such as his. He could
even then turn an epigram or copy of verses, for
which his friend .Johnson would secure a place in
the Gcntlcin(ui\s Md^dzinc. Paragraphs of dramatic
criticism frequently exercised his pen. He had a
farce, ' Lethe,' accepted at Drury Lane, and
another, ''i'he Lying Valet,' ready for the stage.
Actors and managers were among his intimates.

2

18 DAVID GARRICK

He had the entree behind the scenes at the two
great houses, Drury Lane and Covent Garden,
and his histrionic powers were so well recognised
that one evening in 1740, when Yates was too ill
to go on as harlequin at the little theatre in Good-
man's Fields, Garrick was allowed to take his place
for the early scenes, and got through them so well
that the substitution was not surmised by the
audience.

Nor had his been a mere lounger's delight in the
pleasures of the theatre. The axiom, that the stage
is nought which does not ' hold the mirror up to
Nature,' had taken deep hold upon his mind ; but
from the actual stage he found that Nature, especi-
ally in the poetical drama, had all but vanished,
and in its place had come a purely conventional
and monotonous style of declamation, with a
stereotyped system of action no less formal and
unreal. There was a noble opening for anyone
who should have the courage and the gifts to
return to Nature and to Truth, and Garrick felt that
it was ' in him ' to effect the desired revolution.
That the public were prepared to welcome a
reform had been demonstrated by the success, in
February, 1741, of his friend Macklin at Drury
Lane, in the part of Shylock, which the public had
up to that time been accustomed to see treated on
the stage as a comic part.* Pushing aside Lord

* ' I cannot but think the character was tragically
designed,"' is the hesitating suggestion of a Shakespearian

A RETURN TO NATURE 19

Lansdowne's ' Jew of Venice,' which had long
supplanted the original play, and reading Shake-
speare's play by the light of his vigorous intellect,
Macklin saw the immense scope the character
afforded for the display of varied passion and
emotion. Nature had given him the Shylock
look, and in his heart he had ' the irrevocable hate
and study of revenge,' of which the character is
so grand an expression. In the early scenes he
riveted the audience by the hard, cutting force
of his manner and utterance. The third act came,
and here he says :

' 1 knew I should have the pull and reserved
myself accordingly. At this period I threw out
all my fire, and, as the contrasted passions of joy
for the merchant's losses and grief for the elope-
ment of Jessica open a fine field for an actor's
powers, I had the good fortune to please beyond
my warmest expectations. The whole house M^as
in an uproar of applause, and I was obliged to
pause between the speeches to give it vent, so as to
be heard.'

' No money, no title,' added the veteran, as he

editor — Rowe, himself a poet. The playbill of Mackliirs
first nighfs a])j)earance in the part records that Mrs. Clive
was Portia, and Mrs, Pritchard, Nerissa. Strange that an
actress whose strength lay in low comedy shoidd on this
occasion, and for years afterwaids, have done hv.v best, as she
did, to bring down the great lady of Belmont from the high
level on which Shakespeare placed her to that of a vulgar
flirt, who sought, among other horrors, to catch the applause
of" the 'groundlings' by burles(piing in the Trial scene the
manners of a flippant barrister.

2—2

20 DAVID GARRICK

recited his triumph, ' could purchase what 1 felt.
And let no man tell me after this, what fame will
not inspire a man to do. and how far the attain-
ment of it will not remunerate his greatest labours.
By God, sir, though 1 was not worth £50 in the
world at this time, yet, let me tell you, 1 was
Charles the Great for that night ' (Cooke's ' Life
of Mackhn,' p. 9:3).

INlackhn's powers were of an exceptional kind.
He wanted variety and flexibility, and those graces
of person and manner which are indispensable to
a great actor. His success was, therefore, only
momentary, and it was left to his young friend
and companion to complete the reform of which
his own treatment of Shylock was the first
indication.

Nor was that reform far distant. The very next
summer was to decide Garrick's career. His
broodings were now to take actual shape. But
before hazarding an appearance in London he
wisely resolved to test his powers in the country,
and with this view he went down to Ipswich with
the company of GifFard, the manager of the Good-
man's Fields Theatre, and made his appearance
under the name of Lyddal as Aboan in Southern's
tragedy of ' Oroonoko.'* This he followed up by
several other characters, both tragic and comic,
none of them of first importance, but sufficient

* On Julv 21, 1741, he played at the same theatre
Captain Duretete in ' The Inconstant,' and Caius on the
28th.

POWER OF HIS GENIUS 21

to give him ease on the stage, and at the same
time enable him to ascertain wherein his strength
lay. His success was unquestionable, and decided
him on appealing to a London audience.

The quahty in which Garrick then and through-
out his career surpassed all his contemporaries was
the power of kindling with the exigencies of the
scene. He lost himself in his part. It spoke
through him, and the greater the play of emotion
and passion which it demanded, the more diversified
the expression and action for which it gave scope,
the more brilliantly did his genius assert itself. His
face answered to his feelings, and its workings gave
warning of his words before he uttered them ; his
voice, melodious and full of tone, though far from
strong, had the penetrating quality hard to define,
but which is never wanting either in the great
orator or the great actor ; and his figure, light,
graceful, and well balanced, though under the
average size, was equal to every demand which his
impulsive nature made upon it. We can see all
this in the portraits of him even at this early
period. (Jnly in those of a later date do we get
some idea of the commanding power of his eyes,
which not only held his audience like a spell, but
controlled, with a power almost beyond endurance,
liis fellow-performers in the scene. But from the
first the power must have been there. He had
noted well all that was good in the professors of
the art he was destined to revolutionize, and he

22 DAVID GARKICK

had learned, as men of ability do learn, even from
their very defects, in wliat direction true excellence
Avas to be sought for. Long afterwards he used to
say that his own chief successes in 'Richard III.'
were due to what he had learned through watching
Ryan, a very indifferent actor, in the same part.
Richard was the character he chose for his first
London trial, a choice made with a wise estimate
of his own powers, for the display of which it was
eminently fitted. At this time the part was in
the possession of Quin, whose ' manner of heaving
up his words and laboured action,' as described by
Davies, were the best of foils to the fiery energy and
subtle varieties of expression with which Garrick
was soon to make the public familiar. He ap-
peared, by the usual venial fiction on similar
occasions, as a ' gentleman who never appeared on
any stage.' The theatre, a very small one (see
Appendix, p. 93), was far from full ; still, the
audience was numerous enough to make the actor
feel his triumpli, and to spread the report of it
widely. They were taken by surprise at first by a
style at once so new and so consonant to Nature.

' To the just modulation of the words,' says
Davies, ' and concurring expression of the features,
from the genuine workings of Nature, they had
been strangers, at least for some time. But, after
Mr. Garrick had gone through a variety of scenes,
in which he gave evident proofs of consummate
art and perfect knowledge of character, their
doubts were turned into surprise and astonish-

TRIUMPH 23

ment, ft'om which they reHeved themselves in loud
and reiterated applause ' (' Life of Garrick,' vol. i.,
p. 45).

JMacklin, of course, was there, and often spoke
of the pleasure that night's performance gave him.

' It was amazing how, without any example, but,
on the contrary, with great prejudices against him,
he could throw such spirit and novelty into the
part as to convince e^ery impartial person, on the
very first impression, that he was right. In short,
sir, he at once decided the public taste ; and though
the players formed a cabal against him, with Quin
at their head, it was a puff to thunder. The east
and west end of the town made head against them,
and the little fellow in this and about half a dozen
other characters secured his own immortality '
(Cooke's ' Life of Macklin,' p. 99).

The JDailij Post announced his reception next
day in terms which, however little they would be
worthy of belief in any journal of the present day,
at that time were enough to arrest attention, as
'the most extraordinary and gi-eat that was ever
known on such an occasion ' as a first appearance.
Another critic, in the Champion, who obviously
was equal to his work, a phenomenon at no time
common in newspaper critics of the stage, called
attention to his nice proportions, his clear and
penetrating voice, sweet and harmonious, with-
out monotony, drawling, or affectation ; ' neither
whining, bellowing, or grumbling' — tragedians of
those days must have been marvellously like our

24 DAVID GARRFCK

own — ' but perfectly easy in its tmnsitions, natural
in its cadence, and beautiful in its elocution.'

' He is not less happy in his mien and gait, in
which he is neither strutting nor mincing, neither
stiff nor slouching. When three or four are on
the stage with him he is attentive to ivhatever is
spo/iT, and never drops his character when he has
finished his speech by either looking contemptu-
ously on an inferior performer, unnecessary spit-
ting, or suffering his eyes to wander through the
whole circle of spectators. His action is never
superfluous, awkward, or too frequently repeated,
but graceful, decent, and becoming.'

This is invaluable, both as showing what Garrick
was and M^iat tlie actors of that time — in this also,
unhappily, too like the actors of our own — were
not. He listened as well as he spoke. What
passed on tlie stage was to him as real as if it were
a scene in actual life. He was, in fact, 'terribly
in earnest.' He did not play with his work. He
had transported himself into the ideal Richard, and
his strong conception spoke in every flash of his
eyes, every change of his features, every motion
of his body. It is characteristic of the fervour
with which he threw himself into the part, that
before the fourth act was over he had all but run
out of voice, and was indebted to the seasonable
relief of a Seville orange from a chance loiterer
behind the scenes for getting articulately to the end
of the play. This failure of the voice often happened
to him afterwards, and from the same cause. It is

FASHION IN GOODISIAN'S FIELDS 25

one of the characteristics of a sensitive organiza-
tion, and did not arise in him from any undue
veliemence, but evidently from the intensity which
he threw into his dehvery.

A power like this was sure of rapid recognition
in those days, when theatres formed a sort of
fourth estate. Garrick's first appearance was on
October 19, 1741. He repeated the character the
seven following nights, then changed it for Aboan,
his first part of the Ipswich series. The audiences
were still moderate, and his salary — a guinea a
night— moderate in proportion. But fame had
carried the report of the new wonder from the
obscure corner of the city, near the ^linories, in
which liis friend Giffard's theatre was situated, to
the wits and fashionable people in the AVest End.
' Richard ' was restored to the bills. ' Goodman's
Fields,' says Davies, ' was full of the splendours of
St. .James's and Grosvenor Squares ; the coaches of
the nobility filled up the space from Temple Bar
to W'hitechapel.' What Garrick valued more than
all this concourse of fashionables, men of high
character and undoubted taste flocked to hear him ;
and on November 2, Pope, ill and failing, who had
come out early in the year to see Macklin's
Shylock, and liad recognised its excellence, was
again tempted from his easy-chair at Twickenham
by the rumour of a worthy successor having
arisen to the Hetterton and Bootli of his early
admiration.

26 DAVID GARRICK

* I saw,' said Garrick, describing the event long
afterwards to the somewhat magniloquent Percival
Stockdale, ' our little poetical hero, dressed in
black, seated in a side- box near the stage, and
viewing me with a serious and earnest attention.
His look shot and thrilled like liglitning through
my frame, and I had some hesitation in proceeding
from anxiety and from joy. As Richard gradually
blazed forth, the house was in a roar of applause,
and the conspiring hand of Pope showered me with
laurels ' (' Stockdale's Memoirs,' vol. ii., p. 152).

Pope returned to see him twice, and his verdict,
which reached Garrick through Lord Orrery, shows
how deeply he was impressed by Garrick's fresh
and forcible style, and by the genuine inspiration
which animated his performance. ' That young
man never had his equal as an actor, and he will
never have a rival.' Pope dreaded that success
would spoil him ; but Garrick's genius was not of
the ungenuine kind which is spoiled by success.
He knew only too well how far his best achieve-
ments fell short of what his imagination conceived.
Others might think his delineations could not be
improved. Not so he ; for act as long as he might,
there was no great part, in Shakespeare especially,
which would not constantly present new details
to elaborate, or suggest shades of significance or
contrast which had previously escaped him. The
praise of old Mrs. Porter, herself the greatest
tragedian of her time, who had come up to town
to see him from her retirement in the country.

* SUPERIOR TO BETTERTON ' 27

must have spoken more eloquently to him than
even Pope's broad eulogium, and in it, too, there
was the prophecy of the ' All hail, hereafter.' ' He
is born an actor, and does more at his first appear-
ance than ever anybody did with twenty years'
practice : and, good Ciod ! what Avill he be in time ?'*
The Duke of Argyle (the ^lacCallum More
whom Scott has immortalized in ' The Heart of
Midlothian ") and Lord Cobham, great authorities
in stage matters, pronounced him superior to
Betterton. The very conflicts of opinion to which
such high commendations gave rise were the best
of fame for the young artist. They drew crowds
to the theatre, and even before the end of 1741
it was often far too small to accommodate the
numbers that flocked for admittance. The humble
salary of a guinea a night was clearly no adequate
return for such merits. Giffard offered him a share
in the management upon equal terms, and within
the next few months the foundation of the actor's
ultimate great fortune was laid.

Such success could not fail to provoke the
jealousy of those performers who had hitherto
occupied the foremost ranks. It was a virtual
condemnation of all they had trained themselves
to think true acting. ' If this young fellow is
right, tlien we have all been wrong,' said one, as

* This speech was conveyeti to Garrick in a letter, dated
April J^G, 174^, from his friend the Rev. T. Newton (' Garrick
Conespondence,' vol. i., p. 8).

28 DAVID GARRICK

if in that statement were included a final verdict
against him. ' This,' remarked the sententious
Quin, ' is the wonder of a day ; Garrick is a new
religion ; the people follow him as another White-
field ; but they will soon return to church again.'*
Return, however, they did not. A new era had
begun, and Garrick, whose ready pen did not
always do him sucli good service, was able to
retort the sarcasm in a smart epigram, of which
these two lines have kept their place in literature :

' When doctrines meet with general approbation,
It is not heresy, but reformation.'

When Dukes by the dozen, great Parliament
men, Mr. Pitt and others, and even Cabinet
Ministers, were to be seen in the front boxes
applauding, and were known to court the young
actor's acquaintance, the adverse whispers of the few,
who are always too wise to believe in what all the
rest of mankind believe in, were of small account.
The poet Gray might pooh-pooh the new genius —

* Quin and Garrick became excellent friends. Leaving a
coffee-house one night together, only one sedan-chair was to
be had. ' Put Davie in the lantern,' said Quin, stepping
into it. ' Happy to give Mr. Quin light in anything,' was
Garrick's rejoinder. After Quin left the stage, he often came
up from Bath to visit Mr. and Mrs. Garrick at their country
house at Hampton. Garrick wrote the lines for Quin's
monument in Bath Cathedral, but they are not in his best
vein. They smack of the depressing influence of a bad
attack of gout under which he was suffering when they were
written.

COLLEY GIBBER APPROVES 29

its freshness and fire probably jarred his finely-strung
nerves — and Horace Walpole insinuate that he
' saw nothing wonderful in him.' When did he ever
recognise anything truly great ? But they felt
themselves to be the lieretics, and powerless against
the overwhelming tide of popularity which had
set in. Even Colley Gibber, whose adaptation of
'Richard III.' was Garrick's assay piece, and whose
preconceived notions of the character must have
received a rude shock from the new soul put into
it by the young actor, was reluctantly driven to
admit to iNIrs. Bracegirdle, ' Gadso, Bracey, the
little fellow is clever.' The praise of so good a
critic and so experienced an actor was indeed
valuable, and in recounting his successes to his
brother Peter, Garrick writes with obvious pride
(December 22, 1741), ' Old Gibber has spoken with
the greatest commendation of my acting.'

While people were still in admiration at the
tragic force of his Richard, he surprised them by
the display of comic powers, scarcely less remark-
able, in Glodio in the ' Prop's Fortune,' Fondlewife
in Gongreve's ' Old Bachelor,' and other characters,
thus early demonstrating his own doctrine that
* there must be comedy in the perfect actor of
tragedy,' of which he was afterwards to furnish so
brilliant an example. Mis lively farce of ' The
Lying Valet' (produced in December, 1741) estab-
lished his reputation as a writer, at the same time
that it gave him in the part of Sharp a field for the

30 DAVID GARRICK

airy vivacity, the ever-bubbling gaiety of tone, the
talent of making witty things doubly witty by the
way of saying them, for which he was afterwards
so famous. Some of his friends (his townsman
Newton, the future Bishop, then tutor to Lord
Carpenter's son, among the number) thought his
appearance in such parts a mistake.

'You, wlio are equal to the greatest parts,
strangely demean yourself in acting anything that
is low or little,' he wrote, January 18, 1742.
' There are abundance of people who hit off low
humour and succeed in the coxcomb and the
buffoon very well ; but there is scarce one in an
age who is capable of acting the hero in tragedy
and the fine gentleman in comedy. Though you
perform these parts never so well, yet there is not
lialf the merit in excelling in them as in the others.'

Sound enough advice in the main and to
actors of limited scope, and most politic as a
warning, by which Garrick profited, not to let
himself down by playing merely farce parts. But
there is no good reason why an actor of the
requisite genius should not play Touchstone as
well as Othello, Sir Toby Belch as well as Corio-
lanus, with no more loss of caste than Shakespeare
for having written them. But then there must be
the requisite genius to justify the attempt. This
Garrick had, as was soon afterwards proved, when
he passed from King Lear to Abel Drugger in Ben
Jonson's 'Alchemist,' from Hamlet to Bayes in
' The Rehearsal,' and left his severest critics in doubt

HIS INFINITE VARIETY 31

in which he was most to be admired. * Future
times,' AVilks writes, ' will scarcely credit the
amazing contrast between his Lear and Schoolboy,
or his Richard and his Fribble. He gives us not
resemblances, but realities.'

Indeed, it was just this wide range of power,
this Shakespearian multiformity of conception,
which was the secret of Garrick's greatness, and,
after his death, made even the cynical AA^alpoIe
confess that he was ' the greatest actor that ever
lived, both in comedy and tragedy.' Newton
himself was struck by this a few months later.
He had just seen Garrick's Lear, and after giving
him the opinion of certain friends that lie far ex-
ceeded Booth in that character, and even equalled
Betterton, he goes on to say :

' The thing that strikes me above all others is
that variety in your acting, and your being so
totally a different man in Lear from ^^•hat you are
in Richard. There is a sameness in every other
actor. Gibber is something of a coxcomb in every-
thing ; and AX^olsey, Syphax, and I ago, all smell
strong of the essence of Lord Foppington. Booth
was a philosopher in Cato, and was a philosopher
in everything else ! His passion in Ilotspur, I
hear, was much of the same nature, whereas yours
was an old man's passion, and an old man's voice
and action ; and, in the four parts wlierein I have
seen you, Richard, Chamont, Bayes, and Lear,
I never saw four actors more different from one
anotlier than you are from yourself (' (^arrick
Correspondence,' vol. i., p. 7).

32 DAVID GARRICK

His I^ear, like his Ricliard, seems from the
first to have been superb. Cooke, indeed, in his
' JSlemoir of Macklin,' says the first and second
performances of the part disappointed that severe
critic. It did not sufficiently indicate the infirmities
of the man ' fourscore and upwards ' ; the curse did
not break down, as it should have done, in the
impotence of rage ; there was a lack of dignity in
the prison scene, and so forth. Garrick took notes
of Macklin's criticisms on all these points, withdrew
the play for six weeks, and restudied the character
in the interval. Of the result on his next appear-
ance Macklin always spoke with rapture. The
curse in particular exceeded all he could have
imagined ; it seemed to electrify the audience with
horror. The words ' Kill — kill — kill,' echoed all the
revenge of a frantic King, ' whilst his pathos on
discovering his daughter Cordelia drew tears of
commiseration from the whole house. In short,
sir, the little dog made it a chef-d'oeiivre, and a
cJief-d'ceuvre it continued to the end of his life.'

While the town was ringing with his triumphs,
and his brain was still on fire with the fulfilment of
his cherished dreams, Garrick did not forget his
sober partner in business nor the other good folks
at Lichfield, to whose genteel notions his becoming
a stage-player, he knew, would be a terrible shock.
The Ipswich performances had escaped their notice ;
and Brother Peter, when in town soon afterwards,
found him out of health and spirits. He was then

ART BEFORE COMMERCE 33

in the miserable interim ' between the acting of a
dreadful thing and the first motion ' of it. Garrick,
though he had quite made up his mind to go on the
stage, was afraid to break the news to his family.
But he broke it in a letter to his brother and partner*
the day after his debut at Goodman's Fields, while
the plaudits of his audience were yet sounding in
his ears, deprecating his censure with an un-
assuming earnestness which speaks volumes for the
modesty of the artist, and the simple and loving
nature of the man.

' My mind,' he writes, ' (as you must know) has
been always inclined to the stage, nay, so strongly
so, tliat all my illness and lowness of spirits was
owing to my want of resolution to tell you my
thoughts when here. Finding at last both my
inclination and interest required some new way of
life, I have chose the most agreeable to myself, and
though I know you will be much displeased at me,
yet I hope when you shall find that I may ha\^e the
genius of an actor, without the vices, you will think
the less severely of me, and not be ashamed to
own me for a brother. . . . T.ast night I play'd
Richard the Third to the surprise of everybody, and
as I shall make very near £300 per annum by it, and
as it is really what I doat upon, I am resolved to
pursue it.'

The wine business at Durham Vard, he explained,
had not prospered — £400 of (iarrick's small capital
had been lost - and he saw no prospect of retrieving

* The letter is dated October 19, written, no doubt, before
he went to bed on the night of his debut.

3

34 DAVID GARRICIv

it. He was prepared to make every reasonable
arrangement with his brother about their partner-
ship, and in his new career better fortune awaited
him, of which his family should share the fruits.
But the news spread dismay in the old home at
Lichfield ; their respectability was compromised by
one of their blood becoming ' a harlotry player,'
and getting mixed up with the loose morals and
shifty ways of the theatrical fraternity.

Before Peter's reply reached him, Garrick must
have known that his fame was secure. But the
tone of his rejoinder is still modest, though firm.
AVriting again, on October 27, 1741, he assures his
brother that even his friends, ' who were at first
surprised at my intent, by seeing me on the stage,
are now well convinced it was impossible for me to
keep off it.' As to company, ' the best in town ' were
desirous of his, and he had received more civilities
since he came on the stage than he ever did in all
his life before. ' Leonidas ' Glover has been to see
him every night, and goes about saying he had not
seen acting for ten years before.

' In short, were I to tell you what they say about
me, 'twould be too vain, though I am now writing
to a brother. ... I am sorry my sisters are under
such uneasiness, and, as I really love both them and
you, will ever make it my study to appear your
affectionate brother, D. Garrick.'

A less modest or more selfish man would have
thrown off with some impatience the weak scruples

SCRUPLES OF THE FAMILY 35

of his family about loss of caste. How could he be
doing wrong in following the irresistible bent of a
genius for what he knew to be one of the most
difficult as well as noblest of the arts, however
much it might have been discredited by the folly
or the vice of some of its followers, or disparaged as
an ' idle trade ' in the opinion of the unreflecting ?
But Garrick's kindly heart and no less excellent
temper determined him to pursue a conciliatory
course. He reminded his brother, therefore, ' how
handsomely and how reputably some have lived,
as Booth, Mills, Wilks, Cibber, etc., admitted into
and admired by the best companies.' In a future
letter (iSiovember 10, 1741) he told him that

' Mr. Pitt, who is reckoned the greatest orator
in the House of Commons, said I was the best
actor the English stage had produced, and he sent
a gentleman to let me know he and the other gentle-
man would be glad to see me. The Prince has
heard so great a character of me, that we are in
daily expectation of his coming to see me.'

This sort of thing was calculated to impress the
rather dull brain of Peter and the timid souls of the
sisters, which would liave been impervious to any
appeal on the score of the intrinsic nobility of the
actor's art. Garrick could feel within himself, and
might have told them, that he liad his vocation as
clearly as ever poet or painter had his, and that it
no more rested with himself what ' he should do or
what refuse ' than with a Milton to write, or a

3—2

36 DAVID GARHICK

Raphael to design. But to have written to the
good people at Lichfield of these tilings would have
been to talk to stone walls. He therefore keeps
steadily before their eyes the numbers of great folks
who are pressing for his acquaintance — ' the great
Mr. Murray, counsellor' (afterwards I^ord Mans-
field), Pope, Mr. Littleton, the Prince's favourite,
with all of whom he has supped, and who have all
treated him 'with the highest civility and com-
plaisance.' ' Mr. Littleton,' he writes to his brother
Peter (April 19, 1741), 'told me he never knew
what acting was till I appeared, and said I was
born to act what Shakespeare wrote.' He has
dined with Lords Halifax, Sandwich, and Chester-
field. ' In short, I believe nobody (as an actor) was
ever more caressed, and my character as a private
man makes 'em more desirous of my company.' ^^
When they found their brother making his way in
the highest quarters, and becoming well to do at
the same time, the views of his family underwent a
change. It was not, however, till December 2, 1741,
that Garrick threw off the mask, and performed
under his own name. By this time even they must
have begun to doubt, whether honour was not more
likely to accrue to them than discredit from the
step which he had taken. But it must have been
no small pain to him to have the vulgar estimate

* The details of this part of Garrick's correspondence
are fully given in Book III., cap. ii., of Goldsmith's Life, by
Mr. Forster.

CLERICAL APPROVAL 37

of his profession thrown so remorselessly in his
teeth by his own kindred : and that even in the
first excitement of his success he had misgivings
as to what would be his social position, and had
expressed them to his clerical friend Newton,*
may be inferred from a letter of that wise and
Hberally-minded man.

' You need make no apology,' he writes to
Garrick, December 7, 174-1, ' for your profession,
at least to me. I always thought that you were
born an actor, if ever any man Avas so ; and it will
be your own indiscretion (and I hope and believe
you will hardly be guilty of such indiscretion) if
coming upon the stage hurts your reputation, and
does not make your fortune. As great talents are
required for acting well, as for almost anything ;
and an excellent actor, if at the same time he is an
honest, wortliy man, is a fit companion for anybody.
You know Roscius was familiar with Cicero, and
the greatest men of his time ; and Betterton used
fre(juently to visit Hishops Sprat and Atterbury,
and other divines, as well as the best of the nobility
and gentry, not as a mimic and buffoon, to make
di\'ersion for the company, but as an agreeable
friend and companion.'

This was encouragement of a very commonplace
kind to a man who respected his art and himself.
Rut still it was encouragement, and encouragement
not to be despised. For it was not alone the many-
headed vulgar who tliought tliemselves entitled to
look with a kind of scorn upon a player, but the

* Afterwards Hisho|) Newton, the editor of what was at
one time the sUudard edition of the ' Paradise Lost.'

2i\2r.50

38 DAVID GARRICK

so-called men of letters, with Johnson at their head,
who above all others should have been superior to
such prejudice, lost no opportunity of letting Garrick
feel that they regarded the actor as of an inferior
order to themselves. It was only men of the
highest gifts, like Burke, Warburton, Camden, or
Reynolds, or of the highest social position, like the
Dukes of Devonshire or Portland, or the Spencers,
who never wounded his self-respect by airs of
superiority or condescension.

Garrick paid the actor's accustomed penalty for
success by being overworked. Between his first
appearance in October, 1741, and the following
May, when the Goodman's Fields Theatre closed,
he played no less than 138 times, and for the most
part in characters of the greatest weight and im-
portance in both tragedy and comedy. Among
the former were Richard, Lear, Pierre ; among the
latter, Lord Foppington, in Gibber's ' Careless
Husband,' Fondle wife, and Bayes. The range of
character and passion which these parts covered
was immense. To have played them at all, new as
he was to the stage, was no common feat of in-
dustry, but only genius of the most remarkable
kind could have carried him through them, not
only without injury, but with positive increase, to
the high reputation his first performances had
created. In Bayes of ' The Rehearsal ' he was
nearly as popular as in Richard and I^ear ; and
he made the part subservient to his purpose

A VISIT TO DUBLIN 39

of exposing the false and unnatural style into
which actors had fallen, by making Bayes speak
his turgid heroics in imitation of some of the
leading performers. But when he found how
the men whose faults he burlesqued — good, worthy
men in their way — were made wretched by seeing
themselves and what they did in all serious-
ness held up to derision, his naturally kind heart
and good taste made him drop these imitations.
Garrick's true vocation was to teach his brethren a
purer style by his own example, not to dishearten
them by ridicule. INIimicry, besides, as he well
knew, is the lowest form of the actor's art, and no
mere mimic can be a great actor, for sincerity, not
simulation, is at the root of all greatness on the
stage.

The success of Garrick at Goodman's Fields
emptied the patent houses at Covent Garden and
Drury Lane, and the patentees had recourse to the
law to compel GifFard to close his theatre. Garrick
was secured for tlie next season at Drury Lane.
But as that house did not open till September, and
the people of Dublin were impatient to see him, he
started off for that city early in June, and remained
there, playing a round of his leading parts, till the
middle of August. ^Vn epidemic which raged during
the greater part of this time, caused by distress
among the poor and by the great heat, got the
name of the ' Ciarrick fever.' liut the epidemic
which he really caused was not among the pooi", but

40 DAVID GARRICK

among the wits mid fine ladies of that then fashion-
able and lively city, who were not likely to be
behind his English admirers in enthusiasm. He
was berhymed and feted on all hands, and from
them he got the title of Roscius, which to this
hour is coupled with liis name. During this en-
gagement he added Hamlet to his list of characters.
Like his Richard and his Lear, it was treated in a
manner quite his own, and, like them, it was from
the first a success, but was, of course, much elabo-
rated and modified in future years.

At Drury Lane Garrick found himself asso-
ciated with his old friend Macklin, who was deputy-
manager, and with Peg Woffington, that ' dallying
and dangerous beauty,' under whose spell he
appears to have fallen as early as 1740. As an
actress she w^as admirable for the life, the nature,
and the grace which she threw into all she did,
set off by a fine person and a face, which, as her
portraits show, though habitually pensive in its
expression, was capable of kindling into passion, or
beaming with the sudden and fitful lights of feeling
and fancy. She had been literally picked out of the
streets of Dublin as a child crying ' halfpenny salads,*

* ' I have met with more than one in Dublin who assured
me that they remember to have seen lovely Peggy with a
little dish on her head, and without shoes to cover her delicate
feet, crying through College Green, Dame Street, and other
parts of that end of the town, "All this fine spring salad
for a halfpenny — all for a halfpenny — all for a halfpenny —
here!""' ('Memoirs of Lee Lewis,' vol. ii., p. 16).

PEG WOFFINGTON 41

and trained by a rope-dancer, Madame Violante,
as one of a Lilliputian company, in which
she figured in such parts as Captain Macheath
in Gay's ' Beggar's Opera.' like Rachel and
many other celebrated women, she contrived —
it is hard to say how — to educate herself, so
that she could hold her own in conversation in
any society ; and such was her natural grace
that she excelled in characters like INIillamant and
Lady Townley, for which the well-bred air of
good society was essential. Frank, kindly and
impulsive, she had also wit at will to give piquancy
to the expressions of a very independent turn of
mind. She never scrupled to avow that she pre-
ferred the company of men to that of women, who
' talked,' she said, ' of nothing but silks and scandal.'
The men returned the compliment by being very
fond of her company. ' Forgive her one female
error,' says IMurphy. ' and it might fairly be said of
her that she was adorned with every ^■irtue ' — a truly
modest plea, when it is considered that Peg was
not more chaste, and certainly not less mercenary,
than Horace's Barine, to whom, indeed, she was
likened in some pointed but very heartless verses
by one of her many lovers. Sir C. Hanbury
Williams. ' By Jove !' she exclaimed, as she ran
into the greenroom one night from the stage, when
she had left the house cheering her exit as Sir
Harry W'ildair, 'they are in such delight, I believe
one half of them fancy I am a man.' ' Madam,'

42 DAVID GARRICK

rejoined Quin, 'the other half, then, has the best
reason for knowing to the contrary.'

But when Garrick first fell under her fascination
these frailties had not been developed. She was
then in the bloom of her beauty — and how charm-
ing that was we can see from Hogarth's exquisite
portrait (in the INIarquis of Lansdowne's collection)
— and though suitors of wealth and rank surrounded
her, genius and youth had probably more charms for
her than gold and fine living, Garrick was deeply
smitten by her, and he seems for a time to have
thought her worthy of an honourable love. For
one season he kept house together with her and
^lacklin, and they were visited by his friends,
Johnson and Dr. Hoadley among the number.
It was thought he would marry her, but Peg's
aberrations — her ' one female error ' — grew too
serious. She was in truth an incurable coquette.
It was the old story of Lesbia and Catullus.
Garrick's heart was touched, hers was not. It cost
him a good many struggles to break his chains, but
he broke them at last, and left her finally in 1745
to the rakes and fools who were outbidding each
other for her favours.

He was worthy of a better mate, and he was to
find one before very long ; for in IMarch of the
following year (1746) the lady came to England
who was to replace his feverish passion for the
wayward Woffington by a devotion wliich grew
stronger and deeper with every year of his life.

EVA MARIA VEIGEL 43

This was the fan* Eva JMaria Veigel, which latter
name she had changed for its French equivalent,
Violette. She was then twenty-one, a dancer, and
had come from Vienna with recommendations from
the Empress Theresa, who was said to have found
her too beautiful to be allowed to remain within
reach of the Emperor Frederick I. Jupiter Carlyle,
returning from his studies at Leyden, found himself
in the same packet with her, crossing from Helvoet
to Harwich. She was disguised in male attire, and
this although travelling under the protection of a
person who called himself her father and two other
foreigners. Carlyle took the seeming youth for ' a
Hanoverian Baron coming to Britain to pay his
court at St. James's.' But the lady becoming
alarmed by a storm during the passage, her voice, no
less than her fears, at once betrayed her to Carlyle.
This led to an avowal of her profession and of
the object of her journey, and the young, hand-
some Scotsman took care not to leave London
witliout seeing his fair fellow-traveller on the
opera stage, where he found her dancing to be
* exquisite.'*

Such was the general verdict. The dancing of

* 'Autobiography of Carlyle,' pp. 183, 197. Twehe
years afterwards Dr. Carlyle dined with the lady and her
husband at their villa. ' She did not seem to recognise nie,'
he writes, ' which was no wonder at the end of twelve years,
having thrown away my bag-wig and sword, and appearing
in my own gi'isly hairs and in parson's clothes."'

44 DAVID GARRICK

those days was not a thing in which every womanly
feehng, every refined grace, was viohited. It
aspired to dehght by the poetry of motion, not to
amaze by complexities of distortion or brilliant
marvels of muscular force. Beautiful, modest,
accomplished, the Violette not only charmed on
the stage, but soon found her way into fashionable
society. So early as June, 1746, Horace Walpole
writes to his friend Montague : ' The fame of the
Violette increases daily. The sister Countesses of
Burlington and Talbot exert all their stores of
sullen partiality and competition for her.' The
Countess of Burlington took her to live with her,
and was in the liabit of attending her to the theatre,
and waiting at the side-wings to throw a shawl
over her as she left the stage.

These attentions, due solely to the charm of the
young lady and the enthusiasm of her patroness,
were quite enough to set in motion the tongues of
the Mrs. Candours and Sir Benjamin Backbites of
society. The Violette, they began to whisper, was
a daughter of Lord Burlington, by a Florentine of
rank ; and when, upon her marriage with Garrick
in 1749, she received a handsome marriage portion
from the Countess, this was considered conclusive
evidence of the scandal. It was not, however,
from the Earl, but from the Countess, that the
dowry came. It consisted of a sum of £5,000,
secured on one of her ladyship's Lincolnshire
estates ; Garrick on his part settling £10,000 on

COURTSHIP AND ISIARRIAGE 45

his bride, with £70 a year of pin-money.* It is
quite possible that the security for £5,000 granted
by the Countess was simply an equi\'alent for some
such sum previously handed over to her by the
young lady. But the parties kept their own
counsel in their arrangements, and so left the busy-
bodies at fault. * The chapter of this history is a
little obscure and uncertain as to the protecting
Countess, and whether she gives her a fortune or
not,' Horace Walpole wrote out to a friend in
Florence a few days after the marriage, and specu-
lation has since gone on mystifying what was
probably in itself a very simple affair. AVho was
the father of the fair Violette was a secret to the
last, even to Garrick's relations. ' Lord Burlington
was not my father,' Mrs. Garrick said late in life to
one of them, "but I was of noble birth ' (Smith's
' Book for a Rainy Day,' p. 270).

The Countess, it is said, looked higher for her
young friend than the gTcat player, as a Countess
with so celebrated a beauty in hand was likely to do ;
and it was not without difficulty that Garrick won
what proved to be the great prize of his life. He liad
on one occasion to disguise himself as a woman in
order to convey a letter to his mistress. But the

* The evidence of this is before us in a copy of the
man'iage articles, to which the Countess is a party. They
are dated June 20, 1747, two days before the marriage,
and disprove all that is said on the subject by Garrick's
biographers.

46 DAVID GARRICK

fact of her receiving it bespeaks the foregone con-
chision that he had won lier heart, and, tliat fact
once ascertained, the Countess was probably too
wise to oppose further resistance. How attractive
in person the young dancer was her portraits sur-
vive to tell us. AAHiat her lover thought of her
appears from some verses which he wrote in the
first liappiness of what we cannot call his honey-
moon, for their whole married Hfe was one honey-
moon.

' 'Tis not, my friend, her speaking face.
Her shape, her youth, her winning grace.
Have reached my heart ; the fair one's mind,
Quick as her eyes, yet soft and kind —
A gaiety with innocence,
A soft address, with manly sense ;
Ravishing manners, void of art,
A cheerful, firm, yet feeling heart.
Beauty that charms all public gaze.
And humble, amid pomp and praise.'

That this charming picture owed little or nothing
to the exaggeration of the lover is confirmed by the
uniform testimony of all who knew her. A^^ilks,
no mean judge, called her ' the first,' and Churchill
* the most agreeable woman in England.' ' Her
temper,' says Stockdale, ' was amiable and festive,
her understanding discriminating and vigorous,
her humour and her wit were easy and brilliant.
Sterne, writing from Paris in 1762, while fully
appreciating the beauties who thronged the
Tuileries Gardens, said: 'Had she been there

THE ' BEST OF WOINIEN AND WIVES ' 47

last night she would have annihilated a thousand
French goddesses in one single turn.' Three
years later he writes of her as ' the best and
wisest of the daughters of Eve. She is his
INIinerva, whom he is prepared to maintain
against the world as peerless. ' To David Hume,'
as ]\Iadame Riccoboni tells us, ' elle rappelait au
souvenir ces illustres dames Romaines dont on se
forme une idee si majestueuse.' Beaumarchais
speaks of her ' sourires fins et pleins d'expression.'
'I'o her husband Gibbon writes : ' May I beg to be
remembered to Mrs. Garrick ? By this time she
has probably discovered the philosopher's stone.
She has long possessed a more valuable secret —
that of gaining the hearts of all who have the
happiness of knowing her.' Horace Walpole drops
his cynicism in speaking of her. ' I like her,' he
says, ' exceedingly ; her behaviour is all sense and
all sweetness too.'

Of this ' best of women and wives,' as Garrick
called her, he proved himself worthy by a lover-like
wakefulness of affection which no familiarity ever
dulled. During the twenty-eight years of their
married life they were never one day apart. His
friends were hers ; where he went she went, and by
the grace of her presence made his doubly welcome.
' His wit, humour, and constant gaiety at home,'
says his friend Dr. Burney, 'and Mrs. Garrick's
good sense, good breeding, and obliging desire to
please, rendered their Hampton villa ' — where he

48 DAVID GARRICK

was a constant visitor — ' a terrestrial paradise.' The
hcau.v csprits of Paris were only restrained from
throwing- themselves at her feet by the unusual
spectacle of a lover husband — ' Vheureuoc marl,'' as
xMadame lliccoboni calls him, * dont ks regards lui
disc/if sans cesse, I love you !' E\'en Foote, brutal
in his contempt of constancy and the home virtues,
was touched by the beautiful oneness of their lives.
In February, 1700, when he was recovering from
a terrible accident which cost him one of his legs,
and, face to face with pain and sorrow, could listen
to the dictates of his better nature, he wrote to
Garrick : ' It has been my misfortune not to know
ISIrs. Garrick ; but from what I have seen, and all
I have heard, you will have more to regret when
either she or you die than any man in the kingdom.'
Seven years later, and when he had enjoyed the
privilege of knowing her better, the same reckless-
wit, who spared no friend, however kind, respected
no nature, however noble, and from whom, as the
event proved, a thousand wrongs were unable to
alienate Garrick's forgiving nature, wrote of the
lady to her husband in these terms : ' She has the
merit of making me constant and uniform in perhaps
the only constant part of my life— my esteem and
veneration for her.'

Singularly enough, the finest portrait of this
charming woman is associated with Foote. It was
painted by Hogarth for Garrick, and is now one ot
the W^indsor Castle pictures. It presents Garrick

HAPPY HOME-LIFE 49

in the act of composition, his eyes rapt in thought,
and his wife steaHng behind him and about to
snatch the pen from his upraised hand. He is in
the act of writing, so says the catalogue of his sale,
his prologue to Foote's farce of ' Taste.' This
supplies the date, ' Taste ' having appeared in 1752,
just two years after their marriage. The picture is
the very poetry of portraiture. The character, as
well as the lineaments, of both are there, and it
needs no stretch of fancy to imagine Garrick on the
point of illustrating the virtuoso's passion for the
antique by the line —

' His Venus must be old, and want a nose,"*

when his reverie is broken by the saucy challenge
of as pretty a mouth and sweet a pair of eyes as
ever made a husband's heart happy.

\Vhat Ciarrick owed to the happy circumstances
of his marriage can scarcely be rated too highly.
In his home he found all the solace which grace,
refinement, keen intelligence, and entire sympatliy
could give. As artist, these were invaluable to
him ; as manager, a man of his sensibilities must
have broken down without tliem. In 1747, two
years before his marriage, he had, along with Mr.
Lacy, become patentee of Drury Lane Theatre, to
which his performances had been confined, with the
exception of a second visit to Dublin in 1745-1746,
and a short engagement at Covent Ciarden in 1746-
1747. So well had he husbanded his means since

4

50 DAVID GARKICK

his dchiit ut tlie end of 1741, that he was able, with
some help tVoin i'riends, to find £8,000 of the
£12,000 which were required for the enterprise.
Lacy took charge of the business details, while all
tliat related to the performances devolved upon
Ciarrick. He got together the very best company
tliat could be had, for, to use his own words, he
•thouoht it the interest of the best actors to be
together,' knowing well that, apart from the great
gain in general effect, this combination brings out
all tliat is best in the actors themselves.

On the stage, as elsewhere, power kindles by
contact with power ; and to the great actor it is
especially important to secure himself, as far as he
can, against being dragged down by the imbecility
of those who share the stage with him. Sham
genius naturally goes upon the principle of ma
f'cmme et cinq poupees ; real inspiration, on the
contrary, delights in measuring its strength against
kindred power. This was Garrick's feehng. At
starting, therefore, he drew round him INIrs. Gibber,
Mrs. Pritchard, Mrs. Clive, Mrs. Woffington, among
the women ; Barry, Macklin, Delane, Havard,
Sparks, Shuter, among the men. Later on he
secured Quin and Woodward, and, whenever he
could, he drew into his company whatever ability
was in the market. He determined to bring back
the pubUc taste, if possible, from pantomime and
farce to performances of a more intellectual stamp.
Johnson wrote his fine Prologue to announce the

ENTHUSIASM AND HARD WORK 51

principles on which the theatre was to be conducted,
and threw upon the pubHc, and with justice, the
responsibiHty, should these miscarry, by the well-
known lines :

' The drama''s laws the drama's patrons give,
For those who live to please must please to live/

The public, as usual, fell back after a time upon its
love for ' inexphcable dumb show and noise,' and
Garrick had no choice but to indulge its taste.
But in these early days the array of varied ability
which his company presented, backed by his OM^n
genius, filled, as it well might, the theatre
nightly, *

Garrick purchased his success, however, by an
amount of personal labour, for which only his own
passionate enthusiasm for his art could have repaid
him. To keep such forces in order was no common
task ; to reconcile their jealousies, to conciliate tlieir
vanity, to get their best work out of them, demanded
rare temper, rare firmness, and extraordinary tact.
Even with all these, which Garrick certainly
possessed in an eminent degree, his best efforts
frequently provoked the spleen and shallow irrita-

* \\'e have befoie us an extract from the books of the
theatre, from which it appears that the net profits of the
two first years of Garrick's management were 1^16,000.
The nightly receijits, which vai-ied from I'lOO to 1^150 when
he did not play, invariably exceeded l^^OO when he did.
liesides his share of the profits, Garrick received =£^500 a year
for acting, X'oOO for managing, and JJHOO for extras.

4—2

52 DAVID GARRICK

bility of tliose about him. Nor was it only the
airs of his tragic (jiieens that upset his plans and
put his chivalry to sore trial. Woffington and
Clive — one the fine lady of comedy, the other the
liveliest of Abigails — kept him in continual hot
water. Hut his hoiihoimc was not to be shaken ;
and M'hen Chve had written him a more scolding
letter than usual, he took it as a symptom of
better health, and his salutation to her when they
next met would be : ' 1 am very glad, madam, you
are come to your usual spirits.' Even the fiery Kitty
could not resist such invincible good-humour.

Of course, malicious stories in abundance were
propagated against him, many of them due, beyond
all question, to his very virtues as a manager. He
worked from too high a point of view to be under-
stood by many of the people who surrounded him.
Excellence was his aim, and he allowed no one to
trifle with the work he assigned them. Strict and
elaborate rehearsals, under his own direction, were
insisted on, much to the annoyance of some of the
older actors, who had grown habitually careless as
to the words of their parts. His own presiding
mind arranged the business of the scene, and
ensured ensemble and completeness. He took in-
finite pains to put his own ideas into the heads of
performers who had no ideas of their own, so that
his actors often made great hits, which were mainly
due to the soul he had contrived to infuse into them
at rehearsal.

TURNING LAMBS INTO LIONS 53

' Wonderful, sir,' Kitty Clive wrote to him
(January 23, 1774), ' you have for these thirty years
been contradicting the old pro\'erb that you cannot
make bricks without straw, by doing what is
infinitely more difficult, making actors and actresses
without genius.'

Again, on January 23, 1776, when the stage was
about to lose him, she writes from CUeveden (Clive's
Den, as her friend AN^alpole calls it) with her usual
delightful heartiness :

' I ha\'e seen you witli yoin* magical hammer in
your hand endeavouring to beat your ideas into the
heads of creatures who had none of their own.
I have seen you, with lamb-like patience, endeavour-
ing to make them comprehend you ; and when that
coidd not be done, I have seen your lamb turned
into a lion. By this, your great labour and pains,
the public were entertained ; tlieij thought they all
acted very fine — they did not see you pull the wires.
'J'here are people now on the stage to whom you
gave their consequence ; they think themsehes
very great : now let them go on in their new parts,
without their leading-strings, and they will soon
convince the world what their genius is. I have
always said this to everybody, even when your
horses and mine were in their highest prancing.
AN'^hile I was under your control, I did not say half
the fine things I thought of you, because it looked
like flattery ; and you know your Pivy* was always
proud ; besides, 1 thought you did not like me
then ; but noiv I am sure you do, which makes me
send you this letter' ('Garrick Correspondence,'
vol. ii., p. 128).

* A friendly nickname, which appears to have been given
to her by Garrick.

54 DAVID GARRICK

It was only human nature, and not actors' nature
especially, tliat (iarrick should he pulled to pieces
hy the ^'ery nienihers of his company to whom he
had heen most serviceable. Obsequiously servile to
his face, behind his back they persecuted him with
the shafts of slander. ' I have not always,' as he
wrote in 17^4, ' met with gratitude in a playhouse.'
These were the people who whispered about that
lie was not the great actor the world supposed, but
that he maintained his pre-eminence by stifling the
gifts of other people, and letting nobody have
a chance of popularity but himself. This was
singularly untrue. All other considerations apart,
(iarrick was too good a man of business not to
make the very best use he could of the abilities of
his company. An opposite course meant empty
houses and a faihng exchequer, besides double
work to himself as an actor. As he wrote to Mrs.
Pritchard's husband (July 11, 1747), in answer to
some querulous suspicions that she was to be
sacrificed to Mrs. Cibber :

' It is my interest (putting friendship out of the
case) that your wife should maintain her character
upon the stage ; if she does not, shall not the
managers be great losers ? . . . I have a great
stake, and must secure my property and my friends
to tlie best of my judgment.'

But Garrick was also governed by higher motives.
He had a true artist's delight in excellence, and
a kind-hearted man's sympathy with well-merited

RELATIONS WITH OTHER ACTORS 55

success. His whole relations to his actors prove
this. Nor has a word of blame on this score been
left on record against him by any of his really gi-eat
compeers, such as Mrs. Gibber, JNIrs. Pritchard,
Mrs. ^Voffington, Quin, Barry, Sheridan, King,
Smith, or Weston. The charge rests upon the
insinuations of the smaller fry of players, egotists
hke i\lrs. Bellamy or Tate Wilkinson, who charged
him with the meanness which was congenial to their
own instincts.

Horace Walpole, delighting as usual in detrac-
tion, echoed their complaints of Garrick's 'envy
and jealousy'; and JNIrs. Siddons very unwisely
encouraged the charge by insinuating that her
comparative failure during her first engagement in
London, in 1775-1776, was due to this cause. After
she had become the rage of the town in 1782, three
years after Garrick's death, her answer, when ques-
tioned as to her relations with him, according to
AValpole, was to the effect that ' he did nothing
but put her out ; that he told her she moved her
right hand, when it should have been her left. In
short, I found I must not shade the tip of his nose.'
Tliis was an ingenious way of accounting for that
being so indifferent in 1776 which the town was
raving about in 1782. But what are the facts ?
In that first engagement Mrs. Siddons, recently a
mother, was weak and much out of health ; most
certainly she gave no evidence of the remarkable
powers which she afterwards developed. Yet she

56 DAVID GARRICK

was so especijilly favoured by the manager that she
got the name of Garrick's V^enus. At that time
he had in his theatre two actresses, Mrs. Yates and
Miss Younge, both justly higli in favour with the
town : yet he put Mrs. Siddons into several of their
parts, and selected her to act witli him repeatedly
in liis farewell performances— a distinction of infinite
value to so young an actress. Garrick obviously
liked and took pains with her, and his suggestions
could not have been otherwise than beneficial to a
performer whose l^ady Anne, in 'Richard III.,'
was pronounced by the London magazine of the
day to be ' lamentable.' And no doubt she did
profit by them, although she had not the generosity
to own it. Well might Garrick say, ' I have not
always met with gratitude in a playhouse.'

But, in truth, Garrick never had any real cause
to be either envious or jealous of anyone. The
success of his riv^als Quin, Barry, Sheridan, Mossop,
never dimmed the splendour of his own for one
hour. His only dangerous rival as to popularity at
any time was Powell, and tiiis popularity, as the
event proved, was chiefiy due to the fact tliat
Garrick was out of England for the time. ' A sub-
stitute shines brightly as a king until a king be
by.' Worn out with the fatigues of his profession,
Garrick had gone abroad in September, 1763, to
make the grand tour. The previous summer he
had come across Powell, then a merchant's clerk in
the city, and had taken great pains to instruct him.

POWELL 57

Such was his promise that Garrick engaged him
to play the juvenile tragedy parts in his absence.
Powell had a good voice and figure, and consider-
able power of tragic expression, and he became a
great favourite, filling Drury Lane, and enabling
Lacy to write abroad to his brother manager, that
they were doing so well he need be in no hurry to
return. Garrick would have been more than mortal
had such tidings been altogether welcome. No
one likes to tliink he is not missed in the circle of
which he has been the ' observed of all observers,'
least of all an actor, ever too conscious of the fickle-
ness of popular favour, and naturally loth to resign
his hold upon the public. But we find no trace of
either jealousy or chagrin on Garrick's part. On
the contrary, he was annoyed at Powell for en-
dangering his reputation by playing mere fustian :

' I am very angry with Powell,' he writes to
Colman, ' for playing that detestable part of
^Ikwandcr ; every genius must despise such fustian.
If a man can act it ivell, I mean, to plea.se the people,
he has something in him that a i^ood actor shoi/ld not
have. lie n/ii^hf have served Pritchard and himselj',
too, in some good natiu'al character. I liate your
roarers. Damn the part. I fear it will hiu-t him.'

To Powell himself he wrote from Paris (Decem-
ber 12, 1704) in terms the generous warmth of
which it is impossible to mistake, that the news of
his great success had given him ' a very sensible
pleasure.' The gratitude which Powell had expressed
for ' what little service ' he had done him by his

58 DAVID GARRICK

instructions last summer ' has attached me to you
as a man who shall always have my best w^ishes for
his welfare, and my best endeavours to promote it.'
He warns him against playing too many parts, and
the dangers of haste :

' Cxive to study, and an accurate consideration of
your characters, those hours which young men too
generally give to their friends and flatterers. . . .
AVhen the public has marked you for a favourite
{and their favour must be purchased with sweat
and labour), you may choose tvhat company you
please, and none but the best can be of service to
you:

The admirable words with which he concludes
this letter cannot be too often quoted :

' The famous Baron of France used to say that
an actor ''should be nursed in the lap of queens:' by
which he means that the best accomplishments
were necessary to form a great actor. Study hard,
my friend, for seven years, and you may play the
rest of your life. . . . Never let your Shakespeare
be oiit of your hands ; keep him about you as a
charm ; the more you read him, the more you will
like him, and the better you will act him. . . .
Guard against splitting the ears of the groundhngs
— do not sacrifice your taste and feelings to the
applause of the multitude ; a true genius will con-
vert an audience to his manner, rather than be con-
verted by them to xvhat is false and unnatural '
(' Garricic Correspondence,' vol. i., p. 177).

Powell was not ' a true genius.' There is weak-
ness in every line of his comely face, as we see it in

TROUBLES WITH AUTHORS 59

the fine mezzotint by Dixon after Laurenson, and
he did not profit by these golden precepts. He had
sensibihty, which ran over into the extreme of
lachrymose weakness on the one liand and of
furious rant on the other. Intellectual culture,
which alone might have cured this defect, he made
no effort to obtain, and growing too w^ell satisfied
with himself to serve in the ranks, he deserted to
Covent Garden, to Garrick's great vexation, and
died soon afterw^ards at Bath (July 8, 1709) of a
raging fe\er, at the age of thirty-two.

JNIuch as Garrick was w^orried by his actors, the
fraternity of authors caused him even greater dis-
gust. Every scribbler w^ho had put together some-
thing he chose to call a play thought himself
entitled to regard the refusal of his rubbish as a
personal wTong, dictated by the meanest motives,
(xarrick's weak dread of the power of this class of
persons to injure him by attacks in the press con-
stantly led him to act iii defiance of his sounder
judgment. Men like Murphy avowedly traded
on this weakness. ' Tliat gentleman,' says Tate
A\''ilkinson, with liis wonted elegance, ' could tease
his soul and gall his gizzard, w^henever lie judged
himself wronged,' his means being, in Murphy's
own words, ' a fierce campaign ' in the papers.

Garrick was, moreover, too sensitive himself not
to be tender to the sensitiveness of an author.
Often, therefore, when his answer should have been
a simple refusal, he would give a qualified denial,

GO DAVID GAURICK

\vliich was used to justify further importunity, or a
complaint of injustice when tlie decided negative
came, as it often did come at hist. Tlie insolence
of tone assumed by these writers towards Garrick
is indeed incredible. It constantly implied the
question, AA'hat right had a mere player to sit in
judgment upon their literary skill ? The gifted
creature wlio had compiled five acts of dreary
morality or fiery fustian M^as not to be amenable to
tlie puppet to whom he offered the honour of
mouthing it. If a refusal came, although accom-
panied as it generally was by a letter of criticism,
admirable for literary acumen and rich with the
experience of years of practical study of the stage,
it was set down to jealousy, or private dislike, or
some other contemptible motive. Horace A^^alpole
was only echoing the complaints of this class of
persons when, in writing to his friend Montague
about his own impossible play of ' The Mysterious
Mother,' he said (April 15, 17G8) :

' Nor am I disposed to expose myself to the
impertinences of that jackanapes Garrick,* who lets,
notliing appear hut Jus own wretched stuff', or that
of creaturefi still duller, who suffer him to alter their
pieces as he pleases.'

* Yet did Walpole, in 1775, present the great player
with a beautifully-chased gold repeater, which we saw in the
possession of the late well-known bookseller, Mr. Toovey, of
177, Piccadilly, inscribed in a circle round Walpole's crest
' Horace Walpole to his esteemed friend David Garrick
1775;

HIS CHOICE OF PLAYS Gl

By passages such as these much wrong has been
done to Garrick's reputation for fairness. His
assailants and detractors, it must be remembered,
have always had the command of the press, and
much of their abuse, by sheer dint of repetition,
has stuck to his name. Garrick's real mistake was
in putting on the stage and wasting his own and
his actors' powers upon too many bad pieces. Did
he refuse any that have Hved ? Not one, except
' The Good-natured Man' of Goldsmith. He offered
to play ' She Stoops to Conquer '; and, although
these pieces are now classical, let it not be forgotten,
so contrary were they to the prevailing taste, that
on their first production they narrowly escaped
being damned. ' " She Stoops to Conquer," a
comedy !' says Walpole ; ' no, it is the lowest of
farces !'

One instance will suffice to show how unfairly
(Warrick was treated in matters of this sort. He
refused Home's ' Tragedy of Douglas ' ' as totally
unfit for the stage.' Home's Edinburgh friends
were indignant, and went into absurd raptures
about the piece, when it was soon afterwards pro-
duced on their local boards. Even Sir AValter
Scott, writing seventy years afterwards, cannot deal
with the subject without insinuating that Garrick
refused the piece because there was no part in it
in which he could appear with advantage !* And
Jupiter Carlyle, alluding to Garrick's subsequent

* ' Miscellaneous Works,'' vol. xix., p. 3(M).

(•2 DAVID GxVRRlCK

kindness to Home, chooses to find the explanation
of it in tlie fact that ' lie had observed what a hold
Home had got of I^ord Bute, and, by his means, of
the Prince of Wales.' But Carlyle suppresses what
lie must have known, that Home altered his play
materially to cure the defects Garrick had pointed
out, and that all Lord Bute's influence, if he had
any, was brought to bear on Garrick before he
rejected the play. It was through Lord Bute the
play was sent to him, and the following portions
of a letter from (Warrick to his lordship, once in
the writer's possession, establish conclusively that,
whether right or wrong in his decision, Garrick
came to it solely on the literary merits of the piece,
and took unusual pains to point out its defects. Only
a regard for Home would have induced him to do so.

' July yc IQth, 1756.

' My Lord,

' It is with the greatest uneasiness that I
trouble your Lordship with my sentiments of JVlr.
Hume's tragedy. The little knowledge I had of
him gave me the w^armest inclination to serve him,
which I should have done most sincerely had the
means been put into my hands ; but upon my word
and credit it is not in my power to introduce
Douglas upon the stage with the least advantage
to the author and the managers.

* * * •■* *

' I am obliged, my Lord, to be free in the delivery
of my opinion upon this subject, as I think both
Mr. Hume's and my reputation concern'd in it :
I should have had the highest pleasure in forwarding
any performance which yr. Lordship should please

HOME'S ' TRAGEDY OF DOUGLAS ' 63

to recommend ; but nobody knows so well as you
do that all the endeavours of a patron and the skill
of a manager will avail nothing, if the dramatic
requisites and tragic force are wanting.

*****
' The story is radically defective and most im-
probable in those circumstances which produce the
dramatic action — for instance, Lady Barnet* con-
tinuing seven years together in the melancholy,
miserable state just as if it happen'd the week
before, without discovering the real cause ; and on
a sudden opening the whole affair to Anna without
any stronger reason than what might have happend
at any other time since the day of her misfortunes.
This, I think, which is the foundation of the whole,
weak and unaccountable. The two first acts pass
in tedious narrati\'es, without anything of moment
being plan'd or done. The introducing I^ouglas is
the chief circumstance ; and yet, as it is manag'd,
it has no effect. It is romantic for want of those
probable strokes of art which the first poets make
use of to reconcile strange e\'ents to the minds of
an audience. Ladjj Barnefs speaking to Ghnalvou
immediately in behalf of Randolpli, forgetting her
own indelible sorrows, and Glenalvon's suspicions
and jealousy upon it (without saying anything of
his violent lo\'e for the lady, who cannot be of a
love-inspiring age), are premature and imnatural.
i^ut these and many other defects, which 1 will not
trouble yr. Lordp. with, might be palliated and
alter'd perhaps ; but the unafiecting conduct of tlie
whole, and which will always be the case when
the story is rather told than represented ; when the
characters do not talk or behave suitably to the
passions imputed to them, and the situation in
which they are placed ; when the events are sucli

* Afterwards changed by Home to Lady llandolph.

64 DAVID GARRICK

as cannot naturally be suppos'd to rise ; and the
lanouaoe is too often below the most familiar
dialo^jfue ; these are the insurmountable objections
which, in my opinion, will ever make Douglas unfit
for the stage. In short, there is no one character
or passion which is strongly interesting and sup-
ported through the five acts. Glcjia/vo/i is a villain
without plan or force. He raises our expectations
in a soliloquy at the first, but sinks ever after.
Lord Barnet is unaccountably work'd upon by
Crlcnalvon. and the youth is imaccountably attack'd
by Lord Ihiriict, and loses his life for a suppos'd
injury which he has done to him, whose life he just
before preserv'd. And what is this injury ? Why,
love for a lady who is old enough to be his mother,
whom he has scarcely seen, and with whom it was
impossible to indulge any passion, there not being
time, from his entrance to his death, ev'n to conceive
one.

' I have consider 'd the performance by myself ;
and I have read it to a friend or two with all the
energy and spirit I was master of, but without the
wish'd for effect. The scenes are long, without
action. The characters want strength and pathos,
and the catastrophe is brought about without the
necessary and interesting preparations for so great
an event.

*****

' I have undertaken this office of critic and
manager with great reluctance. ... If I am so
happy to agree with Lord Bute in opinion, it woidd
be a less grievance to Mr. Hume to find my senti-
ments of his play not contradicted by so well-known
a judge of theatrical compositions.

' I am, my Lord, yr. Lordship's most humble
and most obedt. servant,

'D. Garrick.'

HOME'S 'DOUGLAS' 65

The verdict of our own day, at least, will be with
Garrick ; for although the play had a great success
in Scotland, partly from local feeling and more
fi'om the f^ict that the author was driven by the
bigots out of the Church for having written it ; and
although the grand voice and presence of Mrs.
Siddons kept it for many years upon the stage, it
has long since disappeared, beyond the powers of
any actress to recall. In London it never had a
great success, and even when first produced at
Covent Garden, in IMarch, 1757, with its northern
fame fresh upon it, and supported by Barry and
Mrs. Woffington, Tate Wilkinson tells us ' the play
pleased, but no more.' Goldsmith, in the Monthly
Review, practically confirmed Garrick's opinion.
Gray and David Hume, the historian, had cried up
the play as a ' masterpiece.' ' Mediocrity ' was the
highest praise even the good-natured Goldsmith
could allow.

In general Garrick's tact in divining what would
or would not go down with the pubhc was unfailing.
Dr. Brown, the author of ' l^arbarossa' and • ^\thel-
stane,' two successful plays, told Stockdale that,
before they were acted,

' Mr. Garrick distinguished to him all the passages
that would meet with peculiar and warm approba-
tion ; to the respective passages he even assigned
their different degrees of applause. The success
exactly corresponded with the predictions.'

No wonder, therefore, if authors eagerly availed

5

66 DAVIU GAllUK Iv

themselves of this invahuible faculty, which Garrick
was always ready to place at tlieir disposal. These
were, however, in the complacent AValpole's estima-
tion, ' creatures still duller than himself, who suffer
him to alter their pieces as he pleases,' and the
whole tribe of ' the unactable ' were ready to catch
up and repeat the strain. Had Garrick's alterations
been confined to the works of the Browns, the
Francklins, the Hills, and the like, it would have
been better for his fame. But he took to altering
Shakespeare with what we, who are better able to
estimate the M'orkmanship of the great dramatist,
can only regard as sacrilegious audacity. We must
not, however, forget that if he mutilated he also
restored ; and, in making the alterations he did, he
probably secured a warmer verdict for the whole
piece, in the then state of the public taste ^ than if he
had played Shakespeare pure and simple. ' The
Winter's Tale,' for example, was cut down by him
into three acts. But the play had for many years
wholly vanished from the stage. To have played
it as Shakespeare wrote it Garrick knew very well
would never do. But it was worth an effort to get
people's attention recalled to its most important
parts — to bring Hermione, that purest and holiest
and most wronged of Shakespeare's women, in
living form before their eyes, and to elevate their
taste by that most exquisite of pastorals in
which the loves of Florizel and Perdita are set.
That he acted on this principle is clear from the

RESTORES SHAKESPEARE'S TEXT 67

concluding lines of his prologue to the altered
piece :

' The five long acts from which our three are taken,
Stretched out to sixteen years, lay by forsaken.
Lest, then, this precious Hquor run to waste,
'Tis now confined and bottled to your taste.
'Tis my chief wish, my joy, my only plan,
To lose no drop of that immortal man !'

No man in Garrick's position would now venture
to write additions to Shakespeare. But are our
own managers and actors less culpable when they
elbow him out of his own pieces by omission or
transposition of important scenes, by overdone scenic
splendour, and by readings of his characters false to
the spirit in which they were conceived ? There
may be worse things on the stage, where Shakespeare
is concerned, than a garbled text. To Garrick, at
all events, it is mainly due that the genuine text
was restored to the stage. He knew his Sliakespeare,
not from acting editions, like Quin, Rarry, Pritchard,
and others, but from the original folios and quartos.
With true literary enthusiasm he made a fine
collection of first editions of all the great early
dramatists, wliich, under the provisions of his will,
now forms one of the treasures of the British
Museum. Thomas AA^arton and George Steevens
used it largely, and it was Johnson's own fault
that it was not equally available to him for his
' Shakespeare.'

Gamck's sympathies with literature and literary

5—2

68 DAVID GAKRTCK

men were very great. He formed a fine library,
and not only formed but used it. He was well
versed in tlie literature of Europe, especially of
Italy and France. He wrote well liimself. His
prologues and vers dc societe are even now pleasant
reading. He would turn off one of his prologues
or epilogues in two hours. Asa rule, an epigram
— such as his famous one on Goldsmith^took him
five minutes. There was no man of literary
eminence in England with whom he was not on
a friendly footing. ' It has been the business, and
ever will be, of my life,' he wrote to Goldsmith
(July 25, 1757), 'to live on the best terms with
men of genius.' When such men wanted money,
his purse was always at their command, and in the
handsomest way.

Sterne, Churchill, Johnson, Goldsmith, Murphy,

Foote, had many proofs of this helpful sympathy,

not to speak of men of lesser note. And yet the

two last were constantly denouncing his avarice

and meanness. Happily, Murphy's own letters

survive to convict him of injustice. To quote one

of many : ' I am convinced,' he wrote to Garrick

(September 20, 1770), ' that you look upon the loan

of two or three hundred pounds to a friend as a

small favour; and I am further persuaded that I

am welcome to be in your debt as long as I please.

Having said this, and said it from conviction,' etc.

This letter was apropos of a sum of £200, which

Garrick had lent him without acknowledgment of

HIS GENEROSITY 69

aiifj kind. And yet this was the man who, from
Garrick's death down to his own, went about
saying, ' Off the stage, sir, he was a httle, sneaking
rascal ; but on the stage, oh, my great God !' It is
pitiful to think a good man's name should be at the
mercy of such a creature.*

Foote's sarcasms on Garrick's parsimony are
preser\^ed by the anecdote - mongers. ' Stingy
hound !' if we are to belie\^e Tate ^^''ilkinson, was
Foote's favourite epithet for him. But Foote was
constantly appealing to Garrick for money in con-
siderable sums, and people do not go to ' mean '
men for that. \A^hat is more, there is no instance
of its having ever been refused ; altliougli no man
had better reason to turn his back upon another.
' You must know — to my credit be it spoken — that
Foote hates me,' he writes to INIrs. Montague, under

* Ecjually characteristic is the following letter from Murphy
to Garrick (March 6, 1777) :

' I began in friendshiji with you, and I am happy to feel
that I end my career in the same sentiments. Jealousies
have intervened, but I hope they are vanished from both our
minds. From mine they certainly are, and it is with the
greatest cordiahty I thank you for your extreme politeness
upon the last occasion that I shall present myself to the
theatrical world. — Believe me to be, dear Sir, your admirer,
friend, and most obliged humble servant, Aurnuii Muuruv.''

Garrick wrote the prologue to 'The Apprentice,' one of
Murphy's earliest pieces, and the epilogue to ' Know Your
Own Mind,' his last and one of his best. No man had
more reasons for subscribing himself Garrick's ^vwd obliged
servant.'

70 DAVID GARlllCK

the provocation of a cliarge of meanness made at
the table of a common friend. Yet, when Foote
most needed help, all his manifold offences were
forgotten, and Ciarrick stood by him with the most
loyal devotion. ' There was not a step,' says Mr.
Forster, ' in the preparation of his defence ' against
the infamous charge trumped up against him by
the Duchess of Kingston, ' which was not solicitously
watched by Garrick.' And to Garrick himself
Foote wrote about this time :

'My dear kind friend, ten thousand thanks for
your note ! . . . May nothing but halcyon days
and nights crown the rest of your life ! is the sincere
prayer of S. Foote.'

The iteration of this charge of meanness as to
money, in the face of the clearest evidence to the
contrary, has influenced even Mr. Forster into
lending his countenance to it. In a note to his
essay on Churchill he prints extracts from two
letters by Garrick to his brother George, written
from Paris, immediately after hearing of the poet's
death, telling him to put in a claim for money lent
to Churchill. ' Mr. Wilkes,' he writes, ' tells me
there is vioneij enough for all his debts, and vioney
besides for his wife. Miss Carr, xvhom he lived with,'
etc. ' You'll do what is proper ; but put in your
claim.' ' I think,' he says, in a subsequent letter,
' and am almost sure, that Churchill gave me his
bond. / asked him for nothing ; he was ifi distress,
and I assisted him.' It is not easy to see why Mr.

SLANDERED AS CLOSEFISTED 71

Forster should say, as he does, that he ' must sorrow-
fully confess ' these letters ' bear out Foote's favourite
jokes about his (Garrick's) remarkably strong box,
and his very keen regard for its contents.' What
would he have had Garrick do ? Say nothing
about his debt at all ? AVhy so, when there was
money enough, according to the statement of
ChurchilFs bosom friend Wilkes, to pay everybody,
and also to provide for those who were dependent
upon Churcliill ? Perhaps, however, he should
ha\e waited for a few weeks in seemly grief for
Churchill's death. But why ? Garrick had no
special cause to mourn for Churchill as a man.
He had proved his admiration for his genius by
very substantial loans of money on more occasions
than one ; and it is surely the merest sentimentalism
to charge to an imdue love of money the fact of his
telling his man of business to look after a debt. In
matters of business why are poets, or the executors
of poets, to be dealt with differently from other
people ?

Johnson, by some of his hasty sayings, lent
countenance to this imputation of parsimony.
But at otlier times he did Garrick justice on this
point, and that in very emphatic terms. ' Sir, I
know that Garrick has given away more money
than any man that I am acquainted with, and that
not from ostentatious views.' Again, ' He began
tlie world with a great hunger for money ; tlic son
of a half-pay officer, bred in a family whose study

72 DAVID GARRICK

was to make Iburpence do as much as otlicrs made
fourpeiice-halfpemiy do. But when he had got
money he was very Hberal.' Here we get the
truth. Tlie well-judged economy of the man
who has his own fortune to make and is resolved
to achieve independence will make him avoid idle
expenses in a way which is odious to the very men
who are ever ready to draw upon his purse when
he has filled it by a life of prudent self-denial.
* To Foote and such scoundrels,' as Reynolds
wrote, ' who circulated these reports, and to such
profligate spendthrifts, prudence is meanness and
economy is avarice.

Johnson was not always so just to Garrick in
other things. He liked the man, and would suffer
no one else to speak ill of him ; but he never quite
forgave him his success. He was himself still
struggling for bare subsistence long after Garrick
had not only become rich and a favourite in the
first society of I^ondon, but was enjoying a
European fame. Johnson was not above being
sore at this, and the soreness showed itself in many
an explosion of sententious petulance. When,
for example, Garrick ventured to suggest some
alteration upon the ' Irene,' which would have
given a little more of that life and movement to
the scene which is so much needed, ' Sir,' said
Johnson, ' the fellow wants me to make Mahomet
run mad, that he may have an opportunity of
tossing his head and kicking his heels.' It was not

JOHNSON NO JUDGE OF ACTING 73

to be borne that an actor should know better than
an author hoAv people were to be interested or
moved. ' A fellow, sir, who claps a hump on his
back and a lump on his leg, and cries, " I am
Richard the Third ! " '

Johnson was no judge of acting. So little dis-
crimination had he, that he found ' a tine airy
vivacity' in the Sir Harry A\^ildair of a country
player, whom Garrick pronounced ' as insufferably
vulgar a ruffian as ever trod the boards.' He had,
moreover, the lowest idea of the actor's art. He
was too short-sighted to see the varying shades
of expression on the face, or even to judge of
the beauty or fitness of scenic action. He regarded
it, therefore, as a mere compound of mimicry and
declamation. ' I never could conceive,' writes
A\^alpole, in his accustomed strain of sublime
puppyism, ' the mar\ ellous merit of repeating the
words of others in one's own language with pro-
priety, however well delivered.' Johnson held the
same opinion, and was not therefore likely to feel,
what is nevertheless true, that higher faculties
were recpiired for playing Lear or Richard as
Garrick played them than for writing plays like
' Irene.'

' A great actor,' as JNladame de Stacl said of
Talma, ' becomes the second author of his parts by
his accents and his physiognomy.' For this a
kindred gift of imagination is obviously necessary.
It is not enough that he shall be master of the arts

74 DAVID GARRICK

of expression in voice, feature and action. He
must also be penetrated by the living fire of a
AMgorous conception. The words to be spoken are
the least pai't of his performance. He must have
lived into the being of the person he has to portray,
have realized the very nature of the man, modified
as it would be by the circumstances of his life.
Only then is he in a condition to give that com-
pleteness to tlie dramatist's work which words
alone cannot convey — tliat crowning grace of
breathing life which makes the creatures of the
poet's imagination stand out before the common
spectator with all the vivid force in which they
primarily presented themselves to the poet's mind.
A great actor's impersonation is, therefore, a living
poem, harmonious from first to last, rounded and
well defined as a piece of sculpture, as finely
balanced as a noble strain of music, and it leaves
upon the mind the same exquisite impression of
completeness. Its details will all be fine. Silence
will be more eloquent than speech, what is aeted
more impressive than what is said, ' each start be
nature and each pause be thought.'

It was this power of becoming the man he had
to play, this rare faculty of imaginative sympathy,
which was the secret of Garrick's greatness. It
was this which made Madame Necker,* no inapt

* Diderot, in his admirable ' Paradoxe sur la Comedie,""
speaks of her as ' une femme cjui possede tout ce que la purite
d'une ame angolique ajoute a la finesse du gout.''

WHAT AUTHORS OWE TO ACTORS 75

judge, say, in speaking of Shakespeare to her
fi'iends in Paris, after she had seen Garrick act :
' \oiis n'avez aperc^-u que son cadav re, mais je Fai
vu nioi, quand son ame animait son corps.' It was
the same quahty in Preville which made Garrick
say of him : ' His genius never appears to more
advantage than idien the author leaves him to shift
for himself ; it is thus Preville supplies the poet's
deficiencies, and xvill tJiroiv a trutli and briUiancy
into his character zchich the author never imagined.''
It was this power which enabled Garrick to mo^ e
the hearts of thousands in parts which, but for his
genius, must have sent an audience to sleep, and
which explains Goldsmith's meaning when he says
that there were poets who ' owed their best fame
to his skill ' — a line tlie truth and fitness of which
those who have seen fine acting will at once recog-
nise. But the actor who can do this does not owe
his triumph to study and the accomplishment of
art alone. These are, no doubt, indispensable ; but
he has his inspirations, like the poet — splendid
moments, when he becomes the unconscious organ
of a power greater than himself On this subject
Garrick himself has spoken :

' Madame Clairon is so conscious and certain of
what she can do, that she never, I belie\'e, had tlie
feelings of the instant come upon her unexpectedly ;
but I pronounce tliat tlie greatest strokes of genius
have been unknoiai to the actor Idmself till circwn-
stances, the rvarmfh of the scene has sprung the
mine, as it zvcir, as much to his orc/i surprise as thai

76 DAVID GARRICK

of his audience. Thus T nuike a great difference
between a great genius and a good actor. The
first will always realize the feelings of his character,
and be trans})orted beyond himself; while the
other, with great powers and good sense, will give
great pleasure to an audience, but never

' " Pectus inaniter angit,
Irritat, imilcet, falsis terroribus implet,
Ut magus.'" '

(' Garrick Correspondence,' vol. i., p. 359).

At the root of the genius of great actors, no
less than of great poets, lies intense sensibility.
Things which other men take coldly will send
thrills of exquisite pain or pleasure along their
nerves, and the strain on their emotions leaves
traces of exhaustion little less than would be
caused by real troubles. But this is the very con-
dition of then- excellence. ' If it was not for the
stage,' wrote JMrs. Gibber, that great mistress of
pathos, to Garrick, a few months before her death,
* I could wish, with Lady Townshend, that my
nerves were made of cart-ropes.' So, when we
read of what Garrick was upon the stage — of the
colour that visibly came and went upon his cheek
with the shifting passions of the scene ; of the
features that in every line became the reflex of
the inward emotion ; of the voice, whose very
character would change to fit the part he was
playing — we may be sure that such qualities im-
plied great physical exhaustion, and great inroads
upon health. Accordingly, throughout his life, and

HIS DELICATE HEALTH 77

even very early in his career, he was often made
ill by his work as to occasion serious anxiety to his
friends.

' Hark you, my friend,' Warburton writes to
him (January 25, 1757), 'do not your frequent
indispositions say (whatever your doctors may
think) lusisti satis ? . . . I heartily msh you
the re- establishment of your health, but you do
not act by it with a conscience. When you enter
into those passions which most tear and shatter
the human frame, you forget you have a body ;
your soul comes out, and it is always dagger out
of slieath with you ' (' Garrick Correspondence,'
vol. i., p. 78).

But it was just Garrick's ' conscience ' which
prevented him fi'om taking his work easy. What-
ever wear and tear of body it cost him, ' he gave
the people of his best' always. Once upon the
stage, he resigned himself to the sway of his in-
spiration, and his whole faculties were at its dis-
posal. To Garrick acting was enjoyment, but no
pastime. He told Stockdale that he was never
free from trepidation and anxiety before coming on
the stage. He had all the modesty and patience
of genius, and took as much pains in preparation
the last year of his performances as the first. He
saw no one on the days he performed, spending
them in meditation on the play of the evening ;
and during the performance he kept himself aloof
from the other actors, still intent on the meditation
of his part, and so that the feeling of it might not

78 DAVID GARRICK

be disturbed. Knowing what we now know of the
man, and his higli estimate of his art, it is impossible
to revert without disgust to an incident recorded
by Murphy in his ' JMemoir of Johnson.' One
niglit, when (Warrick was phiying King Lear,
Johnson and JNlurpliy kept up an animated con-
versation at the side- wing during one of liis most
important scenes. When Garrick came oif the
stage he said, ' Vou two talk so loud you destroy
all my feelings.' ' Prithee,' replied Johnson, ' do
not talk of feelings. Punch has no feelings.' Of
the many recorded outrages of which the great
literary bear was guilty none is more inexcusable
than this.

' The animated graces of the player,' Colley
Gibber has well said, ' can hve no longer than the
instant breath and motion that present them, or
at best can but faintly glimmer through the
memory or imperfect attestation of a few surviving
spectators.' There are many descriptions, and
good ones, of Garrick's acting, but the most vivid
pen can sketch but faintly even the outlines of an
actor's work, and all the finest touches of his art
necessarily perish with the moment. Of Garrick,
however, we get some glimpses of a very lifelike
kind from the letters of I^ichtenberg, the cele-
brated Hogarthian critic, to his friend Boie.*
Lichtenberg saw Garrick in the autumn of 1775,

* Lichtenberg's ' Vermischte Schriften."" Gottingen, 1844,
vol. iii.

LICHTENBERG OX HIS ACTING 79

when he was about to leave the stage, in Abel
Drugger, in Archer in the ' Beaux Stratagem,' in
Sir John Brute in the ' Provoked AVife,' in Hamlet,
in I^usignan in Aaron Hill's version of ' Zaire,' and
in Don Leon in Beaumont and Fletcher's ' Rule
a Wife and Have a Wife.' He brought to the
task of chronicler powers of observation and a
critical faculty scarcely second to that of Lessing.
Every word of what he says lias value, but we must
be content with translating only a few passages.

' What is it,' he writes, ' which gives to this man
his great superiority ? The causes, my friend, are
numerous, and very, very much is due to his
peculiarly happy organization. ... In his entire
figure, movements, and bearing, JNIr. Garrick has
a something wliich I have seen twice in a modified
degree among the few Frenchmen I have known,
but which I ha\'e never met with among the many
Englishmen who have come under my notice. In
saying this, I mean Frenchmen of middle age and
in good society, of course. If, for example, he
turns towards any one with an inclination of the
person, it is not the head, not the shoulders, not
the feet and arms alone that are employed, but
each combines harmoniously to produce a result
tliat is most agreeable and apt to the situation.
\Vhen he steps upon the stage, tliough not moved
by fear, hope, jealousy, or other emotion, at once
you see him and him alone. He walks and bears
himself among tlie other performers like a man
among marionettes. From what I have said no
one will form any idea of Mr, (iarrick's deport-
ment unless he has at some time had his attention
arrested by the demeanour of such a well-bred

80 DAVID GARRICK

Frenchman as I have indicated, in wliich case this
hint would be the best description. . . . His
stature incUnes ratlier to the under than the middle
size, and his iioure is thickset. His limbs are
charmingly proportioned, and the whole man is
put together in the neatest way. The most
practised eye cannot detect a flaw about him,
either in details, or in ensemble, or in movement.
In the latter one is charmed to observe a rich
reserve of power, which, as you are aware, when
well indicated, is more agreeable than a profuse
expenditure of it. There is nothing flurried, or
flaccid, or languid about him, and where other
actors in the motion of their arms and legs allow
themselves a space of six or more inches on either
side of what is graceful, he hits the right thing to
a hair, with admirable firmness and certainty. His
manner of walking, of shrugging his shoulders, of
setting his arms akimbo, of putting on his hat,
at one time pressing it over his eyes, at another
pushing it sideways ofl* his forehead, all done with
an airy motion of the limbs, as though he were
all right hand, is consequently refreshing to witness.
One feels one's self vigorous and elastic as one sees
the vigour and precision of his movements, and
how perfectly at ease he seems to be in every
muscle of his body. If I mistake not, his compact
figure contributes not a little to this effect. His
symmetrically-formed limbs taper downward from
a robust thigh, closing in the neatest foot you can
imagine ; and in like manner his muscular arm
tapers off" into a small hand. What effect this
must produce you can easily imagine. ... In the
scene in " The Alchemist," where he has to box, he
skips and bounds from one of these well-knit limbs
to the other with an agihty so amazing, one might
say, he moved on air. In the dance, too, in " Much

HIS GREAT VIVACITY 81

Ado About Nothing," he distinguishes himself from
all the rest })y the elasticity of his movements.
AVhen I saw liim in this, the audience were so
deliglited tliat they had the bad taste to encore
their Roscius in it. In his face everyone can
descry without much physiognomical discernment
the bright, graceful mind upon the radiant fore-
head, and the keen observer and man of wit in the
quick, sparkling, and frequently roguish eye. There
is a significance and \dvacity in his very looks
which are catching. When he looks grave, so do
we ; when he wrinkles his brows, we do so too ;
in his quiet chuckle, and in the friendly air with
which in liis asides he seems to make confidants
of his audience, there is something so engaging
that we rush forward with our whole souls to meet
him.'

A description like this, aided by the many
admirable portraits which exist, enables us to see
the very man, not merely as he appeared on the
stage, but also as he mo\ed in the brilliant social
circle, wiiich he quickened by the vivacity, the
drollery, the gallant tenderness to women, and the
kindly wit, which made him, in Goldsmith's happy
phrase, ' the abridgment of all that is pleasant in
man.' When Lichtenberg saw Garrick he was
fifty-nine. Rut witli such a man, as Kitty Clive
had said of herself and him some years before,
' Wliat signifies fifty-nine ? The public had rather
see the Garrick and the CHve at a himdred and four
than any of tiie moderns.' His was a spirit of the
kind that keeps at bay the signs of age. ' Gout,
stone, and sore throat,' as he wrote about this

G

82 1)A\ ID GARRICK

period ; ' yet I um in spirits.' To the two first of
these lie had long been a niartyi", and sometimes
suffered horribly from the exertion of acting.
A\'hen he had to play Richard he told Cradock,
' 1 dread the fight and the fall ; 1 am afterwards in
agonies.' But the audience saw nothing of this,
nor in the heat of the performance was he conscious
of it himself.

It is obvious that Lichtenberg at least saw no
trace in him of failing power, or of the bodily
weakness which had for some time been warning
him to retire.* He had meditated this for several
years ; but at last, in 1775, his resolution was
taken. His illnesses were growing more frequent
and more severe. People were beginning to dis-
cuss his age in the papers, and, with execrable
taste, a public appeal was made to him by Governor
Penn to decide a bet which had been made that he
was sixty. ' As you have so kindly pulled off my
mask,' he replied, ' it is time for me to make

* A man like Garrick was sure to be himself the first to
know that he was falling short, or likely to fall short, of
what he had been. Parsons, a valued actor of his company,
his biographer writes, used to say that for some time before
Garrick left the stage his powers were on the wane. ' Garrick,""
he says, ' was doubtless aware of this unpleasing truth, and
has often said : " I'arsons, I will take my leave of the town,
before its gradual absence whispers that falling off of which
I am but too conscious. This is one of Johnson's good-
natured hints, but Fll profit by if"' (Bellamy's 'Life of
Parsons,' ji. 19).

DECIDES TO RETIRE 83

my exit.' He had accumulated a large fortune.
The actors and actresses with whom his greatest
triumphs were associated were either dead or in
retirement. Their successors, inferior in all ways,
were little to his taste. The worries of manage-
ment, the ceaseless wrangling with actors and
authors which it involved, fi-etted him more than
ever. He had lived enough for fame, and yearned
for freedom and rest. At the end of 1775 he
disposed of his interest in Drury Lane for the
large sum of £35,000 to Sheridan, Linley, and
Ford. ' Now,' he wrote, ' I shall shake off my
chains, and no culprit in a jail-delivery will be
happier.'

AVhen his resolution to leave the stage was
known to be finally taken, there was a rush from
all parts, not of England only, but of Europe, to
see his last performances. Such were the crowds,
that foreigners who had come to England for the
purpose were unable to gain admission. While all
sorts of grand people were going on their knees
to him for a box, with characteristic kindness he
did not forget his humbler friends. An instance
of this is before us in the following delightful letter
from Mrs. Clive :

' Twickenham,

^ June ye 10, 177G.

' A thousand and a thousand and icn thousand
tlianks to my dear Mr. (iarrick for liis goodness
and attention to his Pivy — for the care he took in

G— 2

84 DAVID GARRICK

making her friends happy ! Happy ! That word
is not liigh enoiigli ; felicity, 1 tliink, will do much
better to express their joy when they were to see
the Garrick — wliom they had never seen before.
And yet I must tell you, your dear busy head had
like to have ruined your good designs, for you
dated your note INlonday four o'clock, and to-
morrow, you said, was to be the play. And pray,
who do you think set it to rights ? AVhy, your
blunder-headed Jemy. I did not receive your letter
till Wednesday morning ; so they was to set out
for the play on Thursday ; but Jemy poring over
your epistle found out the mistake, and away he
flew to INIr. Shirley's with your letter, and the
newspaper from the cofiee-house, to let the ladies
see the play was that day. This was between one
and two, and Shirley ordered the horses to the
coach that moment, and bid the Misses fly up and
dress, for they must go without dinner. Dinner !
I^ord, they did not want dinner — and away they
went to take up their party, which was Governor
Tryon, Lady and daughter. Everything happened
right. They got their places without the least
trouble or difliculty, and liked everything they saw
except the Garrick. They didn't see much in him.
You may reverse it if you please, and assure
yourself they liked nothing else. They think
themselves under such obligations to me for my
goodness to them, that we are all invited to
dine there to-day, when I shall give you for my
toast.

' I hope my dear JNlrs. Garrick is well. I will
not say anything about you, for they say you are
in such spirits that you intend playing till next
September. Adieu, my dear sir, be assured I am
ever yours,

' PivY Clive.'

LAST APPEARANCE ON STAGE 85

Before this letter had reached Garrick's hands —
it is endorsed by him as received June 12 — he
had bidden adieu to the stage. On the 10th, the
very day his old comrade was proposing him as her
'toast,' he had gone through that trying ordeal
which, had she been aware of it, would have made
her voice choke with emotion. The piece selected
was 'The A\^onder,' and it was announced, with
Garrick's usual good taste, simply as a performance
for 'the benefit of the Theatrical Fund.' No
gigantic posters, no newspaper puffs, clamorously
invoked the public interest. The town knew only
too well wliat it was going to lose, and every
corner of the theatre was crammed. In his zeal
for the Charity of which he was the founder, and to
which this 'mean' man contributed over :£5,000,
Garrick had written an occasional prologue to be-
speak the goodwill of his audience in its favour. It
has all his wonted vi^'acity and point, and one line —

' A fellow-feeling makes one wondrous kind "■ —

has passed into a household phrase. This he spoke
as only he could speak such things. He had entire
command of his spirits, and he even thought that
he never played Don Felix to more advantage.
So, at least, he wrote to Madame Necker eight
days afterwards ; but when it came to taking the
last farewell, he adds :

' I not only lost the use of my voice, but of my
limbs too ; it was indeed, as I said, (i fiiost^tiivjul

86 DAVID GARRTCK

moment. Vou would not have tlioiight an English
audience void of feeling, if you had then seen and
heard them. After T had left the stage, and was
dead to them, they would not suffer the petit piece
to go on ; nor would tlie actors perform, they were
so affected ; in short, the puhlic was very generous,
and I am most grateful ' (' Garrick Correspondence,'
vol. ii., p. 101).

To do consciously for the last time what has
been the work and the delight of a Hfe would
agitate the stoutest heart ; but to do it in the face
of those whose sympathy has been your best
reward, one would suppose almost too much for
endurance. That Garrick felt this is plain. His
parting words were full of feeling and solemnity :

' It has been customary,' he said, ' for persons in
my situation to address you in a farewell epilogue.
1 had the same intention, and turned my thoughts
that way ; but I found myself then as incapable of
wi'iting such an epilogue as I should be now of
speaking it.

' The jingle of rhyme and the language of fiction
would but ill suit my present feelings.

' This is to me a very awful moment ; it is no
less than parting for ever with those from whom I
have received the greatest kindness, and upon the
spot where that kindness and your favour was
enjoyed. {Here Ids voice failed him, and he paused
till relieved by tears. )

« Whatever may be the changes of my future
life, the deepest impression of your kindness will
always remain here— here, in my heart, fixed and
unutterable.

' I will very readily agree to my successors having

HIS FAREWELL ADDRESS 87

more skill and ability for their station than I have
had, but I defy them all to take more uninterrupted
pains for yoiu* favour, or to be more truly sensible
of it, than is your grateful humble servant.'

Then he retired slowly towards the back of the
stage, keeping his wonderful eyes intently fixed
upon his audience. Then he stopped, as though
reluctant to look his parting fiirewell. The enthu-
siasm of the audience, no less reluctant, was broken
by sobs and tears. ' Farewell ! farewell !' burst
from a thousand voices. ' Again and again his
eyes,' writes one of his biogi-aphers, 'turned wist-
fully to that sea of sympathetic faces, and at last,
wdth an effort, he tore himself from their view.'

And so without fuss or flourish — true genius and
gentleman as he was — passed from the stage the
greatest actor of modern times. In the short
period that was left to him he was as happy as
' honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,' and his
own keen relish for social enjoyment, could make
him. He was courted and caressed by the best,
the ablest, the highest in the land. At Court he
had always been a favourite, and there was a talk
of knighting him ; this distinction, however, he
declined.

' I should never have supposed it to have been of
your own seeking,' writes Mrs. I'ye (April 1.5, 1777),
' for it has ever been remarked to your honour that
you never employed your ample fortune to excite
envy and to make Fools stare, but in the rational and
sober enjoyment of life. However, I will not

88 DAVID GARRICK

allow yon the whole merit of this neither ; most
men's follies are OMnng to their wives, and you have
a wife whose judgment is as near infallible as ever
fell to the lot of a mortal.'

Another of the countless testimonies to Mrs.

Garrick's worth. One of Johnson's many stupid

sayings about C^arrick was : ' Ciarriek, sir, has

many friends, but no friend.' The man who was

blest with such a wife wanted no other friend. As

the charming Countess Spencer wrote to him

(December 19, 1770) : ' You, I am sure, can

neither hear, see, nor understand without her.'

AVith such a counsellor and companion by his

side, Damon seeks no Pythias. Of * friends, in

the more restricted sense, no man had more. He

seems never to have lost one who was worth the

keeping. Pitt and Lyttleton, of whose praise he

was so proud in 1741, were strongly attached to

him to the end of their days. Lord Chatham,

from his retirement at INIount Edgecumbe, in some

scholarly lines, mvited him to visit

' A statesman without pow^r and without gall,
Hating no courtiers, happier than them all ';

and Lord Lyttleton (October 12, 1771) wrote to

him :

' I think I love you more than one of my age
ought to do, for at a certain time of life the heart
should lose something of its sensibility ; but you
have called back all mine, and I feel for you as
I did for the dearest of my friends in the first
warmth of my youth,'

HIS TROOPS OF FRIENDS 89

So it was with Bishops Newton and Warburton,
with Lord Camden, with Burke — to whom he was
always ' dear David ' or ' dearest Garrick ' — with
Hogarth, with Reynolds, and with hosts of others.
And, indeed, a nature so kindly, so sympathetic,
so little exacting, might well endear him to his
friends. His very foibles, of which so much has
been made — his over-eagerness to please ; his little
arts of finesse to secure the admiration which would
have been his without effort ; that acting off the
stage of liim who was ' natural, simple, and affect-
ing ' upon it — were those of a lovable man. They
speak of over-quick sensibility ; and, balanced as
they were by the finer qualities of generosity, con-
stancy, tact, active goodness, by his wit and un-
failing cheerfulness, they must even have helped to
make up the charm of his character to those who
knew him best. And then, as Johnson said, ' he
was the first man in the world for sprightly con-
versation.' ' 1 thought him less to be envied on
the stage than at the head of a table.' ' His con-
versation is gay and grotesque. — It is a dish of all
sorts, and all good things ' ; a view which Burke
incidentally confirms in a letter sending Garrick
the present of a turtle, as ' a dish fit for one who
represents all the solidity of flesh, the volatility of
fowl, and the oddness of fish.' He shone as a
talker, even in Paris, beside D'Holbach, Diderot,
Grimm, Marmontel, Helvetius, Crebillon fils,
Beaumarchais, and the rest of that brilliant circle.

90 DAVID GARRICK

Twelve years after Garrick's last visit there Gibbon
heard people constantly exclaiming in the best
society, with characteristic but pardonable vanity,
' Ce JNl. Garrick etait fait pour vivre parmi nous ' ;
and they claimed a share in his renown by reason of
the French blood in his veins (see Appendix, p. 94).

Garrick did not enjoy his retirement long.
While on his wonted Christmas visit to the
Spencers at Althorp, in 1778, he was attacked
by his old ailment. He hurried back to his house in
the Adelphi, and after some days of great pain and
prostration, died upon the 20th of January following.
His death was a national event. His body lay
in state for two days, and so great was the crowd
that a military guard was necessary to keep order.
His funeral was upon an imposing scale. The line
of carriages extended from Charing Cross to West-
minster Abbey, and the concourse of people of all
ranks along the line of the procession was greater, say
the papers of the day, ' than ever was remembered
on any occasion.'* Among the pall-bearers were
Lord Camden, the Duke of Devonshire, Lord
Spencer, Viscount Palmerston, and Sir W. W.
Wynne. Sir Joshua Reynolds and all the members
of the T^iterary Club attended in a body, eager to
pay the last honours not less to the friend than
to the great actor, who, in Warburton's phrase— it
was also Johnson's — had ' lent dignity to his art.'

There were many sad hearts and many tearful
* For account of the funeral see Appendix, p. 95.

HIS FUNERAL 91

eyes around the grave where ' the cheerfullest man
in England ' was to be laid to his rest. One who
had done him much wrong by many an ungracious
speech, we will believe, did penance in that solemn
hour. ' I saw old Samuel Johnson,' says Cumber-
land, 'standing beside his grave at the foot of
Shakespeare's monument, and bathed in tears.'
Johnson wrote of the event afterwards as one that
had eclipsed the gaiety of nations. He even
offered to write his old pupil's life, if Mrs. Garrick
would ask him ; but, remembering the many
savage slights Johnson had shown to him that
was gone, she was not likely to make such a
request. It might have been wiser, however, to
have done so, than to leave his good name at the
mercy of such little-honest chroniclers as JNlurphy
and Davies, whose misrepresentations she despised
too much to think them even worthy of her notice.*
In October, 1822, at the extreme age of ninety-
eight, INIrs. Garrick was found dead in her chair,
having lived in full possession of her faculties to the
last. For thirty years she would not suffer the room
to be opened in which her husband had died (see

* ' We stopped,' says Boswell, speaking of Johnson and
himself, 'a Httle while by the i-ails of the Adelphi, looking
on the Thames, and I said to him with some emotion that I
was now thinking of two friends we had lost who once lived
in the buildings behind us — Topham Beauclerk and Garrick.
" Ay, sir," said he tenderly, " and two such friends as cannot
he supplied."'' Five years after Garrick's deatli, Johnson was
laid in Poets'' Comer, side by side with his old pupil and friend.

92

DAVID GARRICK

Appendix, p. 95). Years wrought no chill in her
devotion to his memory. ' He never was a husband
to me,' she said in her old age to a friend ; ' during
the tliirty years of our marriage he was always my
lover !' She was buried in her wedding-sheets at
the base of Shakespeare's statue, in the same grave
which forty-three years before had closed over her
' dear Davie.'

APPENDIX

Note to P. 31.

It is interesting to note the number, the importance and
variety of characters in which Garrick appeared within the
first six months of his appearance on the stage. They were of
all kinds — tragedy, comedy, farce. Here is a list of them :

Richard III.

Clodio (' Fop's Fortune ')

Chamont (' Orpheus ■■)

Jack Smatter (' Pamela ')

Sharp (' Lying Valet ')

Lothario (' Fair Penitent "■)

Ghost ('Hamlet') ...

Fondlewife ('Old Batchelor') ...

Coster Pearman ('Recruiting Officer')

Aboan (' Oroonoko ")

Witwood (' Way of the World ')

Bayes (' The Rehearsal ')

Master Johnny (' The Schoolboy ')

King Lear ...

Lord Foppington (' Careless Husband ')

Duretete (' The Inconstant ') ...

Pierre (' Venice Preserved ')

Brazen (' Recruiting Officer ') . . .

No. of
Times.

18
12
12
18
24
12

2
11

1

2

4
16

6
11

3

2

4

1

APPENDIX 93

In all, 159 performances out of a season of 169 nights.
GaiTick's name first appeared in the printed bills to his tenth
performance of Kichard on November 25, 1741. He had
two benefits during the season — the first upon December 2,
1741, and the second on March 18 following, when he played
' King Lear ' and ' The Schoolboy.'' The bill for his first
benefit runs thus :

' For the Benefit of Mii. Garrick, who per-
formed King Richard at the late Theatre in
Goodman's Fields,

Next AVednesday, the 2d. of December, 1741,

Will be performed a Concert of Vocal and Instru-
mental JMusic divided in two parts ;

Pit and Boxes laid together at 4s. ; Gallery, Is. 6d.

' Between the tAvo parts of the Concert will be
presented a tragedy call'd The Fair Penitent, the
part of Lothario by JMr. Garrick, being the first
time of his appearing in that character, to which
will be added A Faire,

' Both which will be performed gratis by persons
for their diversion.

• Tickets to be had at the Bedford Coffee House,
Covent (larden ; Toms in Cornhill ; Carey's in
the Minories ; and at Mr. Garrick 's Lodgings in
Mansfield Street, Goodman's Fields.

' Note. — The Stage will be commodiously built
up after the manner of an Amphitheatre ; and
servants will be allow'd to keep places in it, who
are desired to be there by three o'clock.'

NoTi-: TO P. 22.

The building, which had been (iiflkrcrs Theatre in 1741,
was only HS feet long outside the walls, and inside the walls
47 feet wide. The pit wa.s 30 feet wide, and had a depth of

94 DAVID GARRICK

15 feet, with only seven rows of seats. There were two rows
of side boxes, and five of hoxes behind the pit. The depth
of tlic stage was 47 feet () inches, and the width across at
the Hrst wings ilQ feet () inches. There was a gallery above
the boxes. But the house, when filled to the uttermost,
could have held only a very small number. The receipts
during Mr. Garrick's performances seem to have averaged
about £'30 a night. This would give a receipt of about
i'5,000 for the 159 nights he performed at the little theatre,
a large sum in those days.

Note to P. 90.

During Garrick's stay in Paris, where he was for six
months, on his way back from a tour in Italy, he astonished
the circle of philosophers of the Encydopedie by his power of
becoming, even on the floor of their salons, and on the spur
of the moment, not the semblance merely, }:)ut the very
character, either tragic or humorous, which he chose to
illustrate. Thus Baron Grimm writes (July 15, 1765, vol. iv.,
p. 318, of the ' Correspondence Litteraire Philosophique et
Critique de Grimm et Diderot,' Paris, 18^9) : ' Le grand art
de David Garrick consiste dans la facilite de s'aliener Tesprit,
et de se mettre dans la situation du personnage qu'il doit
reprcsenter ; et lorsqu'il s'en est une fois penetre, il cesse
d'etre Garrick, et il devient le personnage dont il est charge.
Aussi, a mesure qu'il change de role, il devient si different de
lui-meme qu on dirait, qu'il change de traits et de figure, et
qu'on a toute la peine du monde ii se persuader que ce soit le
meme Garrick. On pent aisement defigurer son visage ; cela
se con(j-oit ; mais Garrick ne connait ni la grimace, ni la
charge; tons les changemens qui s'operent dans ses traits
proviennent de la maniere dont il s'affecte interieurement ; il
n'outre jamais la verite, et il sait cette autre secret inconcev-
able de s'embellir, sans autre secours que celui de la passion.
Nous lui avons vu jouer les scene du poignard dans la
trasedie de Macbeth, en chambre, dans son habit ordinaire,

APPENDIX 95

sans aucun secours de rillusion theatrale, et a mesure qu""!!
suivait des yeux ce poiguard suspendre et marchant dans Pair,
il devenait si beau qu'il arrachait un cri general d'admiration
a toute Tassemblee/ . . . Avec la meme perfection il joue
tons les roles qui out un modcle dans la nature ; les seuls,
quMl ne sache pas jouer, sont ces roles factices qui ne
rassemblent u rien, et qui n'ont de fondenient que dans
Timagination dereglee et appauvrie d'un poete.' In the same
volume Diderot speaks to the same effect.

Note to P. 91.

When Garrick died, his wife would not allow anything
in the room to be moved. The door was locked, and for
thirty years no one was allowed to enter. At last it became
necessary that it should be opened. Mrs. Hannah More was
with Mrs. Garrick at the time. ' When the door was opened,'
she said, ' and the shutters unbarred, the room was actually
darkened by myriads of moths, which rose from the mouldered
bed and the hangings of the room. Every inch of the bed
furniture was eaten through and through, and, on the air
being admitted, dropped to pieces. The solid articles of
furniture alone remained uninjured.'

Note to P, 90. — GAiuacK's Fukekal.

The following account of Garrick's funeral from a news-
paper of the day shows that nearly all the men of the time
most eminent in politics, literature and art, were present in
the procession from his house to Westminster Abbey. It is
a remarkable record, reading which no one will say he was
not worthy of a place in England's great Campo Santo.

The FuNKRAL PROChssiON and Ceremony
objerved at the Interment o/' D a v i d Gar-
rick, Efq; February I, 1779.

ABOUT a quarter after one o'clock, the
company let out from Mr. Garrick's houlc
on the Royal Terrace, in the Adclphi, and pro-
ceeded in 33 mourning coaches drawn by fix

96 DAVID GARRICK

horfes each, to Wcftminllcr-abbey in the fol-
lowing order :

Four Porters with ilaves.

State lid of feathers.

Six Pages.— [Hearfe full dreft, with The Body

in a coffin covered with crimfon velvet, on

which were the arms of the deceafed,

with this motto underneath,

ReSU RCAM,

And his name, his age, and the day and

year of his death. — ] Six Pages.

Six Horfemen with clokes.

The Pennon on horfeback.

Two Supporters.

Six Horfemen with clokes.

Surcoat, Mr. Evans, Treafurer of D. L. Theatre.

Helmet, Crcil, and Mantle, Mr. Kirk,

Houfekeeper.

State coach empty.

2d coach, four Clergymen, Dr. Hamilton, Rev.

Mr. Wright, Rev. Mr. Bowyer, Rev. Mr. Eaft.

Five coaches with Pall-bearers.

I ft coach, Duke of Devonfhire, Lord Camden.

zd. Lord Spencer, Lord Offory.

3d. Lord Palmerfton, Hon. Mr. Rigby.

4th. SirW.W. Wynne, Bart. Hon. Mr. Stanley.

5th. Albany Wallis, Efq; Paterfon.

Chief Mourners.
8th coach, R. B. Sheridan, Efq;
Two Train-bearers.
9th coach, Family Mourners, Rev. C. Garrick,
David Garrick, Efq; Nat. Garrick, Efq;

Shaw, Efq;

loth. Phyfician and Apothecary, Dr. Cadogan

and Mr. Lawrence.
Butler, Carpenter to D. L. Fofbrook, Book-
keeper, two Horfemen with clokes.
Gentlemen of the 'Theatre, Drury-lane.

11. Meffrs. King and Smith.

12. MelTrs. Yates, Dodd, Vernon.

I 3. Meffrs. Palmer, Brereton, Benfley, Moody.

14. Meffrs. Aickin, Parfons, Baddeley.

Two horfemen in clokes.
Gentlemen of the Theatre, Covent garden.

15. Meffrs. Mattocks, Clarke, Aickin, Baker.

16. Meffrs. Hull, Lewis, Wroughton.Reinhold.

APPENDIX 97

17. MefT.Lee Levves,Whitfield, Quick, Wilfon.

Two horfemcn in clokes.

Gentlemen of the Liternry Club.

I 8. Lord Althorp, Hon. J, Beauclerke, Sir Cha.

Bunbury, Edmund Burke, Elq.

19. John Dunning, Efq; Dr. Percy, Dean of
Carlifle; Dr. Sam. Johnfon; Dr. Morles,
Dean of Furnefs.

20. Edw. Gibbon, Geo. Colman, Jof. Banks,
Ant. Chamier, Efqrs.

21. Wm. Jones, Efq; Sir Jofhua Reynolds,
Hon. Cha. Fox, Wm. Scot, Efq.

22. Dr. G. Fordyce, Rob. Orme, Efq; Bennet
Langfton, Efq; Chetvvynd, Efq.

Two horfemcn in clokes.
Intimate Friends.

23. Sir Geo. Cooper, Bart. Tho. Harris, Efq;
Sir Tho. Mills, Hen. Hoare, Efq.

24. John Robinfon, Efq; Gen. Hale, Geo. Hard-
ing, Efq; Rich. Berenger, Efq.

25. Henry Wilmot, Efq; Rupert, Efq;

Rob. Adam, Efq.

26. Rich. Cumberland, Calvert, Rich.

Cox, Tho. Wyld, Efqrs.

27. Rev.HenryBate,Dr. Ford, Richard Tickel,
Efq; Thomas Linley, Efq.

28. Nath. Barwell, Efq; Geo. Ramus, Efq; fen.
Hon. and Rev. Mr.Cholmondelev, George
Ramus, Efq; jun.

29. Wm. Whitehead, Efq; Wilfon, Efq;

Dr. Burney, Airy, Efq.

30. Mr. Tho. Forreft, Parfon, Efq; John

Crawford, Efq; Tho. Vaughan, Efq.

3'- Angclo, Efq; Mr. Racket, jun. Mr.

Racket, sen. Churchill, Efq.

32. Monf. de Loutherbourgh, Mr. Bennet,
Monf. Texier, Mr. Becket.

33. Walker, Efq; Thomas Johnes, Efq;

Mr. Noverre, Capel, Efq.

Mr. Garrick's family coach empty; Captain
Shaw's ditto, followed by the gentlemen's
family carriages, to the number of 34, the
coachmen and footmen in black filk hat-
bands and gloves.
A party of the guards preceded the proccf-

fion to the church, where two other parties

98 DAVID GARRTCK

formed a line For the company to pafs
through.

The whole of the company were not out of
their carriages till a quarter part three, when on
entering the church, the body was received at
the great wcrt door by the Biihop of Rocherter,
Dean of Wertminftcr, who, attended by the
gentlemen of the choir in their hoods and fur-
plices, preceded the corpfc up the center ayle,
during which time the full organ and choir per-
formed Purccll's grand funeral fervice. Arriving
at the place of interment immediately under the
monument of Shakcfpeare, in Poets Corner,
the Bifhop performed the laft ceremony of the
church; the choir fung another folemn ftrain,
and the remains were depofited in a grave,
doubly hallowed by a nation's grief, and the
copious tears of private friendfhip !

After the burial fervice was over, the mourners
feverally quitted the Abbey, but did not return
in form as they came there.

The concourfe of people of all ranks who
afTembled along the Strand, Parliament-ftreet,
and other places leading to the Abbey, to pay
their laft tribute to their deceafed favourite, was
greater than ever was remembered on any occa-
fion ; and not a face was feen, that did not wear
its portion of the general concern.

^^ ^

1

%rhn^^^cJfMni, S^,^b^tJV^

''aJker9-h. e^c

yia<f^<'n<h/

III //if </iiir(i i Icr I'l .'Mcnni IV.

WILLIAM CHARLES MACEEADY

The condition of a great actor's work is that it
dies with him. Let him have put into it all htat
lifelong observation and study, quickened by the
creative energy of genius, can produce, he must
still be content to forego the natural yearning of
the artist for a hold upon the hearts and minds of a
future age. With the 'dead but sceptred sovereigns
who still rule Our spirits from their urns ' he knows
he can never rank. Of these Alfred de Musset, in
his fine 'Ode to the Memory of JNIalibran,' has said:

' Jamais Taffreuse nuit les prend tout entiers."

But with him it is different. Who shall preserve
from oblivion the magic of voice, the charm of
form, of look, of movement, and of gesture, through
which his soul has spoken to his fellow-men with
such resistless eloquence ? '"■

* The day after the death of the great French actor
Le Kain (February 9, 1778), Thouvel, his not unworthy
successor, wrote in a letter to his fellow-actors, now preserved
in the archives of the Comedie Fran(;aise : ' Voilu done oCi
ahoutissent trente ans de travail, trente ans de peine, trente
ans de gloire; le cercueil engioutit tout en un moment; il ne

99 7—2

100 WILLIAM C IIAHLES IMACREADV

\'et is he not without his consolations. No noble
influence is ever wholly lost, and he may find com-
pensation for the inevitable doom of his noblest
creations in the assurance that the power of his
genius, which has been reflected to him in the
palpable emotion or ringing plaudits of his
audience, has opened up to them a world of poetry
and emotion which but for him they would never
liave known. His ' so potent art ' has awakened
them to a knowledge of their own hearts, ' shown
them noble lights in their own souls.' It has lifted
them for a time above the commonplace of their
daily life ; it has widened the sphere of their sym-
pathies, flashed light upon the conceptions of the
greatest poets, which has made them living realities,
even for the unimaginative ; and in doing this it has
communicated impulses which may exercise a last-
ing influence for good on the lives of thousands.
Happier, too, than many great poets and artists,
the great actor has not to wait for his fame. It
meets him face to face in the eager eyes, the
hushed breath, the choking sob, the triumphant

restera d'un talent souvent sublime qu'une memoire incertaine,
que le temps effacera chez ceux qui la conservent, et qui ne
sera qu^m songe pour ceux qui n'auront point joui de ses
triomphes. Le peintre, le poete, laissent apres eux des monu-
ments de leurs travaux moins acheves dans leur genre que
Le Kain dans le sien ; ce quMls ont fait du bien reste entre
les mains de la posterite, et Le Kain ne laisse rien, meme
aux yeux de ses contemporains, qui atteste son merite, et la
profondeur de ses recherches."*

ACTORS' BIOGRAPHIES 101

acclaim of his contemporaries. Not in vain has he
Hved who owes such success to having wrought
with a pure aim to turn to the highest account the
special gift of genius. Even though his work die
with him, he may comfort himself with the thought
that its excellence lingers long in the traditions of
the world, that no one can tell how far a good
influence created by his own personality may
spread and propagate, and that he will at least
remain — -how few even of the greatest in any
sphere of action do more ! — the shadow of a mighty
name.

Great actors, as a rule, have accepted this con-
dition of their existence cheerfully. They ha^'e
not sought to keep tlieir name and fame before the
world by autobiographies or memoirs, but have left
themselves and their merits to be dealt Avitli by
other pens than their own. In truth, there is little
to awaken interest in the story of an actor's hfe.
The successive steps in his career, the long appren-
ticeship in the practical study of his art, the passage
from stage to stage, the gradual rise to eminence
and fortune — all so interesting to himself— can have
no attraction for any reasonable creature. The
mature fruit of his toils, his impersonations, into
which he throws himself with all that study and
experience have taught him — it is with these alone
that the pubhc have any concern. The true artist
on the stage, as elsewhere, will, above all, be a
gentleman ; and as he will shrink in liis life from

102 WILLIAM CHARLES MACREADY

that vulgar curiosity — never more rife than in the
present day — which seeks to penetrate into the
private history and habits of those who, by the
necessity of their vocation, hve much in the pubHc
eye, he will be no less chary of ministering to this
curiosity when he has passed away, and it can no
longer wound his feelings or outrage his self-respect.
Hence it is that the greatest actors have added
little to biographical literature. The most illustrious
of our own stage — Betterton, Booth, Quin, Garrick,
Barry, the Kembles, Young, Kean — have all kept
silence. Some, if not all, of these could write well ;
and Garrick, the ablest of them all, had, as his letters
testify, the very qualities to make him pre-eminent
in this branch of literature. It is impossible not to
regret that he had not found time to devote himself
to it. What memoirs might he not have written !
Of himself he would probably have told us little.
But what sketches of manners might we not then
have had ! What anecdotes ! what conversations
of Beauclerk, of Johnson, of Goldsmith, of Reynolds,
of Burke and Chatham ; of Clairon, Le Kain,
PrcA ille. Mole, and other stars of the French stage ;
of Diderot, JNIaupertuis, Morellet, Marmontel, of
D'Holbach, and all the brilliant society of Paris !
AYhat pictures of the leading men and women of
his time ! — and there were few whom he did not
know, and know well. Above all, how might he
have set in all the hues of life before us his great
compeers on the stage — Quin, Macklin, Powell,

ACTING CANNOT BE TAUGHT 103

Barry, Mossop, Sheridan, AVeston, King, Mrs.
Woffington, Mrs. Cibber, Kitty Clive, Mrs.
Pritchard, INlrs. Vates, JNIrs. Abington — doing for
them what Colley Cibber has done for Betterton,
for Mountfort, and Bracegirdle. What invahiable
lessons should we not then have had in dramatic
criticism ! AVhat hints to make the stage, as it
ought to be, a school of manners and of high think-
ing, as well as the most delightful of amusements !
The great actors of France, it is true — Le Kain,
Preville, Mole, Talma, and others — have left written
records behind them. But in them little is to be
found of their personal history. It is of their art,
and not of themsehes, they write ; their memoirs
being confined almost exclusively to illustrations
of what the stage is capable, conveyed either in
examples taken from other actors or in general
propositions for the guidance of those who may
liave to practise or to criticise the actor's art. Nor
could better guides to a just appreciation of that art
be desired. They were proud of it ; for they regarded
it from the same higli point of view as A'oltaire,
when he said of a genius for it that it was ' le plus
})eau, le plus rare, et le plus difficile des talents.'
It was an art which in its perfection could only
come of ' the gifts that God gives.' It could not,
as the great comedian l*rcville wrote, be tauglit :
' A man must be born an actor, and then it is not
a master he needs, but a guide.' Mdllc. Chiiron,
though herself open to the charge of too artificial

104 WILLIAJM CIIARI.ES MACREADV

a style—' elle est trop actrice,' was Garrick's com-
prehensixe criticisin, a fault Ironi which at a later
date she shook herself free — was equally clear on
this point. ' 1 am aware of no rules,' she writes,
'no traditions, that are capable of imparting all
those qualities of mind and sensibility w^hicli are
indispensable for the production of a great actor ;
1 know of no rule by which one can learn to think,
to feel. Nature alone can give those faculties, which
study, advice, and time may serve to develop.'*
But though teaching could not make a fine actor,
he was not, therefore, to dispense with culture and
study, ' Fill yourselves with knowledge,' Clairon
says elsewhere; 'be unremitting in the search for
truth ; by dint of care, of study, make yourselves
worthy to educate your pubHc, and constrain them
to own, that you profess the most difficult of all
the arts, and not the most degraded of mechanical
crafts.'

Le Kain, himself an illustrious instance of the
power and patience of genius to overcome the dis-
advantages of face and figure for a vocation where
such disadvantages are most felt — that inexpressible
something which made ' Pritchard genteel and
Garrick six feet high' — writes eloquently in the
same strain : ' Soul is the foremost requisite of

* 'Vois-tu,' wrote poor Rachel, when sinking under her
fatal illness, ' pour ctudier, il est bien inutile de parler, de
faire de gestes ; il faut penser, il faut pleurer ' (' Madame de
Girardin,' par Imbert de St. Arnaud [Paris, 1875], p. 263).

LE KAIN 105

the actor ; intelligence the second ; truth and
fervour of utterance the third ; grace and harmony
of movement the fourth. To be thoroughly master
of his parts, to know the force and significance of
every line, never to lose sight of Xature, simple,
noble, and affecting ; to be assured that under-
standing is not to be acquired save by ripe medita-
tion, nor practical skill sa\'e by persevering toil ; to
be always in his part ; to use the picturesque with
skilful reserve ; to be as true in level speaking as in
the great movements of passion ; to avoid whatever
is trivial ; to make his pauses not too frequent ; to
let nobility of style be seen even across his lightest
moods ; to avoid jerkiness in speaking ; to weep
only when the soul is stormed and thrust in upon
itself by grief ; to show unbroken attention to what
is passing on the stage, and to identify himself with
the character he represents ' — these are some, and
only some, of the qualities which go, in the estima-
tion of one from whose judgment there could be no
appeal, to constitute the claim to be considered a
great actor.

Those who thought so highly of tlieir art were
not hkely to be otherwise than proud of it. They
bore witliin them that which might well make them
indifferent ahke to the prejudices that refused them
the social status conceded to other artists and to
the Churchman's dogma, which denied to them,
wlicn dead, a resting-place in consecrated ground,
'i'hc gill which made them great was Divine in its

1()() WILTJAM CHARLES MACllEADY

origin ; and lo\ ing their pursuit, as they did, with
the passionate devotion wliicli was one main secret
of* their excellence, they felt it gave them a rank
above conventional distinctions. They would not,
if they could, have exchanged it for any other.

The sneer at the player's craft of some well-born
fool, or of some professional pedant, what could it
matter to a man w ho knew he could cope with the
best in every honourable quality, and whose business
in life was to make his fellows familiar with * the
high actions and the high passions ' which make
a poetical drama the best disciphne of humanity ?
Nor were our English actors behind them in glorying
in their vocation. On the statute-book players
might still appear as ' vagabonds '; but the pro-
fession which our supreme poet had follow^ed, and
for which his best works had been written, could
not be degraded by the reckless classification of an
obsolete law. The opinion of society soon abolished
the stigma : the actor who respected himself was
sure of public respect. Whom, indeed, was it
prepared to welcome more kindly, or to accept in
its most intellectual circles upon a footing of more
complete equality ? And if in public any slight
were offered to him, the support of his audience
never failed him ; just as it is upon record, that the
house went thoroughly with (Teorge Frederick
Cooke, in his memorable retort to a young officer
in the stage-box, who had made himself conspicuous
by interrupting the play : ' You are an ensign ?

DEPRECIATES THE ACTOR'S ART 107

Sir, the King (God bless him !) can make any fool
an officer, but it is only the Almighty that can
make an actor !'

It naturally, therefore, excited no small surprise,
not unmixed with indignation, among the actors
of the day, when, before the Select Committee on
Dramatic Literature in 1832, presided over by Sir
E. L. Bulwer, Mr. Macready, who had by this
time taken rank with the leaders of his profession,
spoke of it as one so ' unrequiting that no person
who had the power of doing anything better would,
unless deluded into it, take it up.' In a separate
answer he disparaged it still further by saying,
' that persons who could find any other occupation
Avoidd not take to one on which they were de-
pendent entirely upon the humom* of the public'
It was an ungracious speech, considering that the
public had been kind to him to the full measure
of his deserts. Rut it had a farther and deeper
significance, because it showed that the speaker
wanted the first element of greatness — a thorough
faith in his art, as in itself worthy, without reference
to the measure of popular appreciation or of money
value. It was obvious fi'om such a reply that Mr.
Macready did not view his profession, as we have
seen I^e Kain do, en ^rand. His individual self
was more to him than his art. Its followers were
exposed to popular caprice. Rut what artists are
not ? Did Gainsborougli, Constable, Romney,
Midler — nay, did even Flaxman — rise to their

108 WILLIAM CLIARLES MACREADY

true place in their own day ? The return for
their works in pounds, shilhngs, and pence was
small. The artist in whose thoughts such things
are uppermost may be dexterous, may be popular ;
but without tlie inspiration which seeks a vent,
that will not be repressed, on the canvas, in the
marble, or upon the stage, let the world requite
him as it may, he will never be truly great.

The ' Reminiscences and Selections from the
Diaries of Mr. Macready,' two volumes, published
in 1875, are an instructive commentary on
INIr. Macready's evidence in 1832. No one can
read them without seeing that he had no special
genius, in the right sense of the word, for the
stage. Accident, not inborn impulse, took him
there; and great force of will and a determined
ambition carried him into a conspicuous place
upon it, which his sound intellectual training and
high personal character enabled him to maintain
with honour. Whatever he had to do, it was his
maxim to do thoroughly. The inspiration of
genius was not within his command, but hard
study and a certain fervour of style gave to many
of his impersonations something that seemed to
come near it. He worked at acting as he would
have worked at jurisprudence or theology, had
circumstances taken him to the Bar or to the
Church. Under no conditions would he have
been content to be lost in the common herd of
toilers in the same field. But to the artist's delight

HIS REMINISCEXCES AXD DIARIES 109

in his work for its own sake, this book shows very
clearly that he was a stranger. This fact, now
placed by it beyond mere surmise, is to our
minds the best justification of those who qualified
their admiration of his talents by denying to him
the attributes of an actor of the highest class.

AVhile, too, this book did not raise the general
estimate of JVIr. Macready as an actor, it was
unhappily not calculated to make the world think
better of him as a man. Actors have an evil
reputation for egotism and jealousy. No one
ever lay more heavily under this imputation than
Mr. Macready while on the stage. We have heard
the greatest comedian of his time say of him :
' Macready never could see any merit in any living
actor in his own line, nor in any actress either,
until she was either dead or off the stage.' The
indictment was sweeping. It expressed a general
feeling on the part of those who came professionally
into contact with Mr. Macready. But it would
never have been known to the outside world
but for the injudicious pubhcation of diaries
which he certainly never intended should meet the
public eye.

From them it is apparent that, so little assured
was Mr. Macready of liis hold on public favour,
or, to use his own phrase, on 'popular caprice,'
that he lived in constant dread of being ousted
from it by some new favourite. The echo of
applause, unless given to himself, fills him with

110 WILLIAM CHAKLES MACREADY

'envious and vindictive feelings.' The words are
his own (vol. ii., p. 02). But for his own confessions,
as here sfiven, tlie extent of tliis weakness would
ha^ e been incredible. Thus, when he was in the
zenith of his reputation (August 29, 1837), he
reads in the Morning Herald that ^Ir. Phelps has
made a decided success. What is his comment ?
' It depressed my spirits, though perhaps it should
not do so. If he is greatly successful I shall reap
the profits ' — Mr. Phelps was then under engage-
ment to appear in Mr. Macready's company at
Covent Garden — ' if moderately, he will strengthen
my company ; but an actor's fame and his dependent
income is (sic) so precarious, that we start at every
shadow of an actor. It is an unhappy life ' (vol. ii.,
p. 88). By this rule nothing would have more
thoroughly embittered his existence than a stage
filled with performers of the highest stamp. No
generous emulation, no triumph in the general
exaltation of the drama, no delight in the display
of genius or power in others, would compensate
his hunger for exclusive predominance, for the
comparative eclipse of his own star. And yet
this was the man whose highest claim on the
public favour was, as one well remembers, his pro-
fessed desire to raise and dignify the stage !*

* At the same time, it is quite certain that when off the
stage — and his admirable judgment allowed itself fair play —
Mr, Macready was always ready to admit the great importance
to the actor of having good actors on the stage with him.

HIS EGOTISM AS ACTOR 111

It is typical of the same morbid egotism that,
even when JNIr. INIacready is chronicling in these
diaries the production of the numerous poetical
plays which were the glory of his management
at Covent Garden and Drury Lane, it is only of
his own share in them that he speaks. No one
would ever suppose that they were supported by
a body of performers scarcely inferior to himself,
and to whom, at all events, almost as much as to
himself, their success was due. One illustration
will suffice. Bulwer's ' Lady of Lyons ' was pro-
duced on February 15, 1838, with a cast not likely
to be forgotten by those who were present— Helen
Faucit, Macready, Bartley, Elton, Diddear. But
all Mr. Macready has to say is : ' Acted Claude
Melnotte pretty well. The audience felt it very
much, and were carried away by it, and the play in
the acting was completely successful : was called for.'
Again, when the play is repeated two nights after :
' Was called for ; led on Miss Faucit, and was very
cordially received ' ; as if the Pauline of the young
actress, to whom the first success of the play and
its ultimate hold on the stage were mainly due,
had been of no account.

In truth, Mr. Macready could * brook no rival
near the throne.' If the main interest of any of the

To Lady Pollock he said : 'It is the greatest help to have a
great actor by your side ; it is torture to act against bad
acting — to be, as it is said, "ill -supported '"'■' (Lady Pollock's
'Macready as I Knew Him,"" p. 27).

112 WII.TJAM CHAKLES MACKEADY

new pieces he produced was found on rehearsal or
in performance not to centre in himself, it lost its
interest for him. This was often alleged of him
both by authors and actors ; his own diaries ' give it
proof.' Thus, when Bulwer's comedy of ' Money '
is first put into his hands, he is charmed with it.
He reads it to the Haymarket Company (October
24, 1840). ' It was quite successful,' he notes,
' with them.' A few days of rehearsals change the
aspect of everything. ' As I write,' he says
(November 4), ' doubts and misgivings rise in my
mind. I have nothing great or striking in situation,
character, humour, or passion, to develop. The
power of all this is thrown on Mr. Strickland, and
partially on Mr. Webster.' On December 8 — in
these days a month of rehearsals was not thought
too much for a new play*— the comedy was pro-
duced. By this time INIr. Macready had apparently
discovered that it was not only Mr. Strickland and
Mr. Webster who might have the pull upon him,
so he is ' very much depressed and low-spirited . . .
Acted the part of Evelyn — not satisfied. I wanted
lightness, self-posses«::on, and in the serious scenes,
truth. I was not good ; I feel it. In the last scene
Miss Faucit, as I had anticipated, had quite the
advantage over me. This was natural.' If so, then

* ' We have had twenty rehearsals of this,"' said someone
at the end of the last rehearsal of Bulwer's 'Richelieu.''
' Then, I wish you luck at vingt-et-un C said Tom Cook, the
leader of the orchestra. His wish was more than fulfilled.

ACTING OF BULWER'S 'MONEY' 113

surely it was a thing to rejoice in ; and those who
remember how adinirably all the parts of this
brilliant comedy were filled on its first production —
a uniformity of excellence that secured for it the
longest run of any play of the period — will be
surprised to find that this circumstance was only a
source of vexation to one who, both as actor and as
the trusted fi*iend of the author, might well have
been glad of whatever brought the merits of the
play into the highest relief.

Mr. IVIacready was always ready to urge upon
the members of his company that it was the actor
that made the part, not the part that made the
actor ; and we have heard him quote with warm
commendation the reply of the celebrated German
actress Schroeder to someone who remarked with
surprise on her condescending to perform the unim-
portant part of Lady Capulet, the night after she
had taken her audience by storm as Lady INIacbeth.
' Condescend !' she replied ; ' is it not Shakespeare
I acted?*' Constant sacrifices of this kind were
conceded to Mr. Macready. But what was a sound
rule for others was apparently no rule for him.
Thus, having played Friar Lawrence in ' Romeo
and Juliet ' one night (^Vpril 30, 1838), he records :

* Mr. Macready, apparently, was not aware that Mrs.
Pritchard, the I.ady Macbeth of Garrick's company, also
played Lady Capulet to Garrick's Hamlet, and many other
e(|ually subordinate chaiacters, although she was the leading
lady of Garrick's company.

8

114 WILLIAM CHARLES MACREADY

' 1 find playing a part of this sort, with no character
to sustain, no eiibrt to make, no poivcj' of perceivmg
an impression made, to be a very disagreeable and
unprofitable task. Having required many of the
actors to do what they considered beneath them,
perhaps it was only a just sacrifice to their opinions
to concede so far.' How little of the Schroeder
spirit is here ! Lady Capulet has not one feature
of dramatic interest. On the other hand, the
character of Friar Lawrence is sketched with subtle
skill, and he has at least one considerable speech of
great beauty. But it is beneath Mr. INIacready's
notice, because it gives no scope ' for perceiving the
impression made,' or, in plain English, for what is
technically called ' bringing down the house.'

With strange inconsistency, the man to whom
the plaudits of an audience were as the breath of
his nostrils, who could do nothing without the
stimulus of 'perceiving an impression made,' affected
to abhor, and even to despise, the only profession in
which this stimulus can be had. All through this
book run lamentations at the untoward fate that
made him an actor. That wretched old statute
about ' vagabonds ' poisons his existence. It is in
vain that audiences cheer, that critics extol, that
honours are showered upon him by statesmen and
men of letters as the great regenerator of the British
stage. He was not a gentleman by statute. ' The
slow unmo\dng finger ' of a purely imaginary scorn
troubled his peace. Nor was this all. \\^hat might

DISCOXTEXT AVTTH HIS VOCATION 115

he not have done, he says, at the Bar, or in some
other profession ? The first satire of his favourite
Horace might have taught him to cure himself be-
times of that most foohsh of all foolish habits,
which makes men sigh for some occupation other
than that which choice or destiny has assigned them.
What a man does best may be pretty safely taken
to be what he is best fitted to do. And Mr. Mac-
ready did his acting so well that, it may fairly be
doubted whether he could have done anything else
better, if so well. In his boyhood he was destined
for the Bar ; but, judged by his own confessions, he
had neither the patience, tact, nor temper, without
which no man need hope to make his way there.
A disposition like his, so morbidly sensitive, so im-
patient of control, so dictatorial and supercilious,
would have exposed him to sufferings far more
acute in that career than any he had to encounter
on the stage, where his temper made many suffer,
who, being dependent on him for their income, had
to bear with it as it would have been borne with
nowhere else. \Miere else could he have hoped
to secure so many of the prizes for which many
excellent men have to struggle in vain ? His place
upon the stage brought him fame, a fair fortune,
troops of friends in England, ^\merica, and France,
among them many of the choicest spirits of his
time, and tlie lionours of more than one public
dinner ; and yet liis diaries abound with such entries
as this : ' Fcbruarjj ID, 1845. — I see a hfe gone in

8—2

116 WILLIAM CHARLES MACREADY

an unworthy, an imreqiiiting pursuit. Great energy,
great power of mind, ambition and activity that,
with discretion, might have done anything, now
made into a player.' Or this, on July 1, 1843, when
he has been to Westminster Hall to see the exhibi-
tion of Cartoons : ' Saw several persons that I knew,
to whom I did not speak, as I did not know how
far they might think themselves lowered in their
own opinion by speaking to me.' And yet the
same morning he had breakfasted with Monckton
JNIilnes (Lord Houghton), to meet Carlyle, Bunsen,
Lord Morpeth, and several other people of the
same class, not one of whom but esteemed him, and
of course treated him as they would have treated
any other gentleman of their acquaintance.

Can it be, is the question that again and again
rises as we read passage after passage of this kind,
that Mr. Macready seriously meant such revela-
tions of personal foibles, if not of something worse,
to be given to the public ? Is it conceivable that
a man should turn his diary into a confessional, in
which to hold up in black and white before strangers'
eyes his vanity ; his overweening estimate of his
own powers and importance ; his vices of temper, of
en\y, of jealousy, of morbid pride ; his grudges at
fortune ; his occasional misgivings about himself; his
penitences and his self-reproaches ? It may perhaps
be well for him that he should write down there
his appeals to Heaven for help against these and
other besetting sins. But such revelations can

HIS DIARIES— WHY PUBLISHED 117

scarcely have been intended for the pubhc eye.
They were infinitely painful, as we know, to
many of his friends, who had been accustomed to
think highly of a man in many respects so excel-
lent and so distinguished. They teach nothing,
because they are only one evidence the more of
the ineradicable weaknesses and follies even of the
wise. Surely, too, the taste is more than equivocal
which dictated the publication of such prayers as
are here recorded for protection against the vices of
an overbearing temper, which, by the way, was
always ready to break out with fresh vigour after
every smiting of the breast, and cry of ' Mea culpa,
mea maxima culpa.' From ejaculations such as
these one turns away, as one would from a private
letter left accidentally open. What can be said of
them but what St. Beuve says of similar pious
outpourings in JMadame Schwetzine's ' INIemoirs '? —
' Des que la priere commence, la critique litteraire
expire.'

Had the editor of Mr. IVIacready's papers used
their contents as the materials for a biograpliy,
cutting remorselessly away all that is essentially
private and unimportant or needlessly communi-
cative, enough would have been left to make an
amusing and instructi\'e book. If he had been a
httle blind to the faults of his hero, so much the
better ; Mr. Macready's good qualities would then
have stood out in probably truer proportion
and relief. We should have thought only with

118 WILLIAM C HAKLES MACREADY

pleasure of the old fjivoiirite, to whom we had
owed many a delightful and instructive hour in the
dreamland of the theatre. At tlie same time we
should have escaped a host of details, with which
the book is weighted, of where, and what, and
when Mr. Macready played ; how much a night he
got ; how his Macduff at one. place was imbecile,
his Laertes, at another, infected with the vice of
the Court of Denmark ; his Evadne, at a third,
without brains or breeding ; how much money was
in the theatre on one night, how little on another ;
how at one time he was called on night after
night after the play, or how, to his amazement, he
was not once called on through a whole engage-
ment ; of petty squabbles, and prosy speeches— all
that, in a word, may be dismissed as the merest
chronicling of personal and theatrical small beer.
Even the ' Reminiscences,' begun by Mr. Macready
in 1855, and which bring down his story to the end
of 1826, should have been weeded of a deal of stuff
of this kind. He Avould indeed have done more
wisely, we venture to think, if, like his distinguished
predecessors, he had left the story of his life alto-
gether in other hands. But no mercy should have
been shown to the subsequent diaries. All that is
really valuable in them would have gone into a
comparatively small compass, and been worked
up into a compact and animated biography. A
work intended, no doubt, to keep alive the name
and fame of Mr. Macready, has done it serious

BIRTH AND PARENTAGE 119

injury, and the opportunity was lost by its editor
of adding an agreeable volume to the not too
numerous list of good works that deal with the
history of the English stage.

William Charles Macready was born in London
on March 3, 1793. - His father, the son of a well-
to-do Dublin upholsterer, left the paternal business
for the stage, and after running the usual career in
the provinces, and playing for some time in London,
became the manager of the Birmingham, Sheffield,
and other theatres. He wrote the successful farce
of ' The Irishman in London,' produced at Covent
Garden in 1782, and seems to have enjoyed and
merited the respect of the various towns where he
flourished as a manager through a long life. His
flrst wife, the mother of W. C. Macready, was also
on the stage — a fact of which, oddly enough, her
son makes no mention in his ' Reminiscences.' She
seems to have been one of those mothers whose
sweet influence penetrates the lives of their chil-
dren, and haunts them like some holy presence.
She died in December, 1803, and her son never
speaks of her but with the deepest reverence and
devotion. Doubtless he cost her no small share of
anxiety, for in his childliood he was marked, to use
his own words, by ' a most violent and self-willed
disposition ' — an inheritance from his father, in
which the gentle mother must have foreseen a
pregnant source of future trouble.

120 WIT.LIAM CHARLES MACREADY

]Macready was one of six children. The family
means were small, the parents busy ; so while
little better than an infant he was got out of the
way by being sent to a day-school. Henceforth, he
says, 'my childhood and boyhood were all school.'
A preparatory school at Kensington, where the
pupils were arrayed ' in uniform of scarlet jacket,
with blue or nankeen trousers,' next received him ;
and from this he was removed to a school in
Birmingham, where the master, a Mr. Edgell,
a 'violent-tempered man,' who was confidently
believed to have forsaken the tailors' shop-board
for the ferule and the desk, did his best to make
his pupil's bad temper worse, while initiating him
in the mysteries of English grammar and Bonny-
castle's arithmetic. But the future actor was even
then foreshadowed in the fact, so commonly met
with in the lives of players, not the greatest, that
recitation was his forte. Milton and Young were
two of his school-books.

' I had to learn by heart long extracts from
them, from Akenside, Pope, and pieces from
"Enfield's Speaker," including Sterne, Thomson,
Keate, Shakespeare, etc., which have been of some
service to me in accustoming my ear to the enjoy-
ment of the melody of rhythm. I'o cure me of
the habit of misplacing my lis, my dear niother,
I remember, took especial pains ; and in teaching me
Dryden's " Alexander's Feast," the hne, as I pro-
nounced it, '-'Appy, 'appy, 'appy pair!" was for
some time an insuperable obstacle to progress.'

NELSON AT BIRMINGHAM 121

He learned quickly, and retained what he
learned. Pope's ' Homer ' was got almost by
heart ; and its author became so great a favourite
with him that long afterwards he prepared for his
children, and subsequently published, an expur-
gated edition of Pope's works. The great London
actors, when set free by the close of the London
theatrical season, which was then a wdnter one,
were a^'ailable for his father's theatre at Birming-
ham. Here in the manager's dressing-room he
had a glimpse of King, dressed as Lord Ogleby.
The gi-and deportment and beauty of Mrs. Siddons
were engraven on his boyish memory. The face
of Mr. W. T. Lewis, the great comedian, also
made an indelible impression on the boy; but of
Mrs. Billington, all he could remember was the
figure of a very lusty woman, and the excitement
of the audience when the orchestra struck up the
symphony of Arne's rattling bravura, ' The Soldier
Tired,' in the opera of ' Artaxerxes.' He had the
much greater good fortune to catch a glimpse of
Nelson when, during the short peace of Amiens,
the hero of the Nile made a tour of several of the
provincial towns — ' a recreation apparently innocent
enough, but which was harshly reflected on in tlie
House of Lords.'

' The news of his arrival spread like wildfire, and
when his intention of going to the theatre got wind,
all who liad Jieard of it, as might have been expected,
flocked there to behold and do him honour. The

122 WILLIAM CHARLES M ACRE AD Y

play was Sliakespeare's " Merry Wives of AVindsor,"
for the benefit of a player of the name of Blissett,
who had some repute in the part of FalstafF. At
my father's request, T^ord Nelson consented to
bespeak for the next night the play of " King
Henry IV.," wishing to see Blissett again in FalstafF.
The box office was literally besieged early the next
morning, and every place soon taken. At the
hoin* of commencement my father was waiting
with candles to conduct the far-famed hero through
the lobby, which went round the whole semicircle
of the lower tier, to his box. The shouts outside
announced the approach of the carriage : the throng
was great, but, being close to my father's side, I
had not only a perfect view of the hero's pale and
interesting face, but listened with such eager atten-
tion to every word he uttered, that I had all he
said by heart, and for months afterwards was wont
to be called upon to repeat " what Lord Nelson
said to your fatlier." This was in substance to
the effect that the universal esteem in which his,
my father's, character was held in the town
made it a pleasure and a duty to render him any
assistance.

' Nothing of course passed unnoticed by my
boyish enthusiasm : the right-arm empty sleeve
attached to his breast, the orders upon it, a sight
to me so novel and remarkable ; but the melancholy
expression of his countenance and the extremely
mild and gentle tones of his voice impressed me
most sensibly. They were indeed for a life's re-
membrance. When, with Lady Hamilton and
Dr. Nelson, he entered his box, the uproar of the
house was deafening, and seemed as if it would
know no end. The play was at length suffered
to proceed, after which was a sort of divertisement
in honour of the illustrious visitor, from one song

NELSON'S POPULARITY 123

of which I can even now recollect one couplet !
Oh sacred Nine, forgive me while I quote it !

' " We'll shake hands, and be friends ; if they won't, why,
what then ?
We'll send our brave Nelson to thrash em again.
Derry down," etc.

The crowded house was frantic in its applause at
this sublime effusion. Lady Hamilton, laughing
loud and without stint, clapped with uplifted hands
and all her lieart, and kicked with her heels against
the footboard of the seat ; while Nelson, placidly
and with his mournful look (perhaps in pity for
the poet),"^ bowed repeatedly to the oft-repeated
cheers. Next day my father called at the hotel
to thank his Lordship, when Nelson presented
him with what he intended to be the cost of his
box, ^Tapped in paper, regretting that his ability
to testify his respect for my father was so much
below his will. My father never told me the
amount, but purchased with it a piece of plate
that he retained till his death in memory of
the donor. I should not omit to mention that in
the hall of the hotel were several sailors of Nelson's
ship wanting to see him, to each of whom the great
admiral spoke in the most affable manner, inquiringly
and kindly, as he passed through to his carriage,
and left them, I believe, some tokens of his
remembrance.'

One of the elder Macready's theatres was that
of Holton-le-Moors, which in those days was regarded
as a semi -barbarous place — not lighted, the dialect

* Surely not. The lines had the right ring in them — the
faith in their hero, their faith in themselves, which carried
the British nation through the fiery ordeal of that time.

124 A\ TLLIAM CHARLES MACREADY

uncouth, tlie artisans given to fighting, and to
winding up a set-to by a playful method of adjust-
ment called ' purring,' in which the combatant,
when his adversary was down, kicked him on the
head with his wooden-soled shoe — a tradition of
those heroic ages which Liverpool subsequently
reduced to practical perfection. An incident re-
corded of jMr. Macready's visit to this place is
characteristic of the loyalty, the almost family tie,
which then bound the members of a theatrical
company together. The great London manager,
George Colman the younger, struck by the perform-
ance of three of Mr. Macready's actors in his own
play of 'John Bull,' offered them high terms to
go to his theatre in the Haymarket, and they
resisted the temptation. ' My father stood on his
dignity, and not having been first applied to, refused
his permission, without whicli they all most loyally
refused to treat.'

We get what may be almost called old-world
glances of travelling, and of what were then mere
hamlets, and are now flourishing towns, in the
accounts of the boy's visits to Dublin ; to Holy-
well, with St. Winifred's Spring, where ' the crutches
suspended as votive offerings beneath the groined
arches of the roof above it ' testified to the miraculous
power of its waters ; to Chester, then, as now,
swarming in the race Veek ; to I^eamington, ' then
a small village, consisting only of a few thatched
houses, not one tiled or slated, the Bowling-Green

AT RUGBY SCHOOL 125

Inn being the only one where very moderate ac-
commodation could be procured. ' The failing health
of jNlacready's mother drew her to the waters of
Leamington. It was there he saw her last, when
he set out with his father for Rugby, with all a
boy's trepidations and reluctance to face the un-
known future of a great public school. He fell
there as fag under a very harsh master, ' a young
Irishman of the name of Ridge,' and wi'ote home
such piteous letters that his fatlier more than once
thought of sending for him. The mother, with
a ^\iser sagacity, prevented this. Her boy was
no worse off than other boys, and he had a kind
cousin in Mr. Birch, one of the masters, who would
not suffer him to be ill-treated. So there he re-
mained, making a course through the school rapid
beyond precedent, and attaining the fifth form in
three years, ' fi'om which advance he began to be
sensible of a certain enjoyment of his position.'

It was one of the amusements of the bigger boys
at Rugby to get up plays, and they were not likely
to overlook the fact tliat the father of one of their
school-fellows had a theatre no farther off than
Birmingham. Here was an easy way to get at
play-books and dresses, and these were readily
furnished to them on the application of the
manager's son. Some requital for such a service
was due even to an under schoolboy. It was
given first in the distinguislied post of prompter.
Higher honours followed ; and Dame Ashfield in

126 WILLIAM CHARLES MACREADY

"Speed the Plough,' Mrs. RriilgTuddery in 'John
Bull,' the Jew in Dihdin's ' School for Prejudice,'
and Briefwit in the I'arce of ' W^eathercock,' a
tolerably varied list, were the maiden efforts of the
futin*e tragedian.

Other excitements varied the school routine.
Nothing was talked of but Bonaparte and invasion.
The older boys went through regular drill after
school hours with heavy wooden broadswords,
* their blue coats cuffed and collared with scarlet.'
These were also the days of one of the maddest
frenzies that ever possessed the play-going public.
It was only in August, 1874, that its object died
at the ripe age of eighty-three, ' a prosperous
gentleman.' William Henry West Betty, the
young Roscius, ' a miracle of beauty, grace, and
genius,' as Macready calls him, and still a mere
boy, was the theme of all discourse.

' My father had brought him to England, and
his first engagement was at Birmingham, where
crowded houses applauded his surprising powers
to the very echo. In London, at both Drury
Lane and Co vent Garden theatres, and throughout
the whole country, " the young Roscius " became
a rage ; and in the furore of public admiration the
invasion ceased to be spoken of. He acted two
nights at I^eicester, and on a half holiday, my
cousin Birch having sent a note to excuse me and
his eldest son from the afternoon's callings-over, at
my father's request Tom Birch and myself were
smuggled into a chaise and reached I^eicester in
time for the play, " Richard HI." The house was

THE VOUNG ROSCIUS CRAZE 127

crowded — John Kemble and H. Harris, son of the

patentee of Covent Garden, sat in the stage-box
immediately behind us. I remember John Kemble's
handkerchief, strongly scented of lavender, and
his observation, in a very compassionate tone,
"• Poor boy ! he is very hoarse." I could form
little judgment of the performance, which excited
universal enthusiasm, and in the tempest of which
we were of coiu'se borne along.

' . . . After the play. Tom Birch and myself got
into our chaise, and travelling through the night
reached Rugby in good time for " first lesson " in
the morning.'

During subsequent engagements with the elder
Macready the boys became playfellows ; ' and off
the stage,' we are told, ' W. H. Betty was a boy
with boys, as full of spirits, fun, and mischief as any
of his companions, though caressed, fondled, and
idolised by peeresses, and actually besieged for a
mere glimpse of him by crowds at the door of his
hotel.' This popularity, like all similar fashionable
crazes, was doomed to a sudden extinction. A^^hen
he had reached manhood, the public turned a cold
ear to him, and, as Macready thinks, unjustly.

* It seemed,' he says, ' as if the public resented on
the grown man the extravagance of the idolatry
they had blindly lavished on the boy.' His level
speaking w^as not agreeable. * A sort of sing-song
and a catcli in his voice suggested the delivery of
words learned by heart, not Howing from the
impulse or necessity of the occasion ; but when
warmed into passion he became possessed with tlie
spirit of the scene, and in witnessing, as 1 have

128 WILLIAM CHARLES M ACRE AD Y

done, his illustration of passages with all the
originality and tire of genius, tlie conviction was
pressed upon me tliat if lie had not had to his
prejudice the comparison of his boyish triumphs,
and the faulty manner derived from fi'equent care-
less repetition, he would have maintained a dis-
tinguished position in his maturer years.'

In 1 807 Drc AVooll succeeded to the head-master-
ship of Rugby. He was too indulgent ; and there
being no longer the same pressure on his industry
as under Wooll's predecessor, Dr. Inglis, young
JNIacready for a time fell back in his studies.
Happily, he pulled up in time, and to retrieve
what he had lost, would get out of bed when the
house was asleep, hang up clothes against the
windows to hide his light, and, with the help of
strong tea, sit up to a late hour working at his
Homer or Virgil. Dr. Wooll varied the exercises
of the elder boys by introducing the composition of
English verses ; and in addition to the prizes for
these and Latin verse, gave prizes for speaking, as
a test of the elocutionary powers of the fifth and
sixth forms. Young Macready had clearly struck
him as a declaimer above the average. He assigned
the boy the closet scene in ' Hamlet ' for the public
declamation ; and in answer to his remonstrance on
the score of its difficulty, silenced him by saying :
' If I had not intended you to do something extra-
ordinary, I should not have taken you out of your
place.' ' Robinson, afterwards Master of the Temple,
Lord Hatherton {nee Walhouse), and the late Sir

RECITATIONS AT RUGBY 129

G. Ricketts,' Mr. Macready notes, 'were the best
speakers.' But the comments made at the time on
one of the cards by an old gentleman who was
present at tlie representation on the second Tuesday
in June, 1808, while they confirm the excellence of
Robinson and Ricketts, place INlacready quite on
a level with them. They are ' excellent,' ' very well,'
' very excellent,' but his share in the entertainment
is pronounced to be ' surprisingly well indeed.' In
Dr. AVooll's time the school-plays were got up ' in
a more expensive style ' than in his predecessor's,
and ' with great completeness.' Audiences from
the town and neighbourhood were invited. The
young actors flew at high game. Dr. Young's
tragedy of ' The Revenge,' with the farce of ' Two
Strings to your Bow,' made a strong bill. Zanga
and Lazarillo, the leading parts, fell to Macready.

' The success was great : we were all much
applauded, and I remember the remark of a ]\Ir.
Caldecot, reported to me — " 1 should be uneasy if 1
saw a son of mine play so well." I had, however,
no thought of this but as an amusement ; and my
pride would have been wounded if a suspicion had
been hinted that 1 could regard it in any other
light. The half-year closed with speeches before
an auditory consisting only of the school and the
gentry of the town. My place was the last among
tlie speakers, and 1 can now remember the inward
elation I felt in marking, as I slowly rose up, the
deep and instant luisli tliut went tlirough the whole
assembly ; I rcc^ollcct the conscious pride 1 felt, as
the creaking of my shoes came audibly to my ears,

9

130 WILLIAJNI CHARLES MACREADY

whilst I deliberately advanced to my place in the
centre of tlie school. My speech was the oration of
Titus Quintius, translated from Livy. It was a
little triumph in its way, but the last I was doomed
to obtain in dear old Rugby.'

Another reminiscence, which falls within this
period, is not uninteresting. In passing through
Birmingham, Macready went to the theatre, M^hich
had by this time fallen into other hands, his father
having left it for Manchester. The after-piece was
a serious pantomime, founded on Monk Lewis's
ballad of * Alonzo and Imogene.' The manager's
wife, a lady cast in ' Nature's amplest mould,' was
the fair Imogene.

' As if in studied contrast to this enormous " hill
of flesh," a little mean-looking man, in a shabby
green satin dress (I remember him well), appeared
as the hero, Alonzo the Brave. It was so ridiculous
that the only impression I carried away was that
the hero and heroine were the worst in the piece.
How little did 1 know, or could guess, that under
that shabby green satin dress was hidden one of the
most extraordinary theatrical geniuses that have
ever illustrated the dramatic poetry of England !
When, some years afterwards, public enthusiasm
was excited to the highest pitch by the appearance
at Drury Lane of an actor of the name of Kean,
my astonishment may easily be conceived on dis-
covering that the little insignificant Alonzo the
Brave was the grandly impassioned personator of
Othello, Richard, and Shylock !'

On young Macready 's return home for the holidays
of the winter 1808-1809, it was to find his father

HIS FATHER'S BANKRUPTCY 131

ruined. The Manchester theatre had proved a
failure, and had absorbed the httle property which
the elder Macready had accumulated in previous
years of successful management in Birmingham,
Sheffield, Newcastle, and elsewhere, and out of
which he had sustained the very considerable
expenses of his son at Rugby. An exhibition at
Oxford, a degree, and a call to the Bar, had till
then been the boy's ambition. But this dream was
all at once rudely dispelled. Even the last half-
year's bills at Rugby were unpaid. Mr. Birch, his
kind cousin there, at once relieved him of this
difficulty ; but his father was, in fact, bankrupt, and
a return to Rugby was impossible. Mr. Macready
writes, in a mysterious way, of ' a lady then staying
in our house,' who had made mischief between his
lather and himself, and from whom he first learned
the state of his father's affairs. From lier came
at the same time the suggestion that he should
go on the stage.

' Would not my doing so relieve my father from
farther expense of my education ? My expectations
did not go beyond this result. The extravagant
views of my counsellor looked to another young
Roscius furore (I being not yet sixteen years of
age), and speculated on a rapid fortune.'

\\' hen he spoke to his father, it was to tell him
his mind was made up to go on the stage. His
father, wlio by this time was well aware of the
obstinacy of his son's temper, seems to have dealt

9—2

132 WILLIAM CHARLES MACREADY

quite fairly with him. ' It had been the wish of his
life,' he said, ' to see nie at the Bar ; but if it was
my real wish to go upon the stage, it would be
useless for him to oppose it.' To the Zanga of
Rugby School the stage was probably not without
allurements. In any case, he went there of his
own choice, swayed, perhaps, by the thought that
he was doing sometliing noble in sacrificing to filial
duty his dreams of forensic distinction. If he really
had within him the qualities to make a great lawyer,
all the odds are against his having given up his first
ambition. Men have fought their way to the first
rank at the Bar under heavier disadvantages.

At once he set about preparing himself for his
future vocation, taking lessons in fencing, and
getting by heart the words of the youthful char-
acters then in vogue. Meanwhile his classics were
not forgotten, and this, with the assistance which he
gave his father in the business of his theatre, kept
him fully employed. Of his father as an instructor
for his future work he speaks slightingly. He had
no originality himself Macklin and Henderson,
the heroes of his youth, John Kemble, and even
Pope and Holman, were his ideals. Consequently
he referred ahvays to what he had seen, and cited
the manner in which past celebrities would deliver
particular passages. A worse monitor for a young
man, who was not strong enough to think for him-
self, and find his own modes of expression, could
not well be conceived. Every period has its style ;

BECOMES ACTOR AND MANAGER 133

so has every genuine artist ; neither will fit another
age or another individual. So we are not surprised
to hear that Macready ' in after-life had the difficult
task of unlearning much that was impressed upon
him in his boyish days.'

Worse for a youth afflicted with a fierce and im-
perious temper was the circumstance that, as his
father was forced to keep out of the way to avoid
arrest, he had to carry on the business of his theatres
for him. Managers are by necessity despots. How
liurtful to one, already too self-willed, must it
ha^e been to find himself charged with all ' the
omniscience of youth,' in a position where he could
lay down the law on all subjects within a little
kingdom of his own ! The entire management
de^'olved on him at Newcastle, where he remained
for two months, ' not deriving much ad\'antage,
though some experience, from the society of some
of the players, and falling desperately in love witli
one of the actresses— no improbable consequence of
the unguarded situation of a boy of sixteen.'
Availing himself of the in\'itation of his father's
friend Fawcett, one of the best comedians of the
day, he came to London in the end of 1809, to see
the best actors and to learn fencing from the best
masters. It was the period of tlie O. V. riots at
Covent Garden Tlieatre. His father had com-
manded him not to see John Kemble, for fear of his
becoming an imitator. The injunction was super-
fluous, for neither Kemble nor his sister, Mrs.

184 WTLLIAINT CHAIU.KS ^^ACREADY

Siddons, would be listened to. ^Vfter three or four
weeks of unbroken riot, the house would be tolerably
quiet during the first three acts of the play, until
the influx of brawlers at second price turned the
theatre into a bear-garden.

During this time Macready reports that he had
the satisfaction of seeing Cooke, Young, C. Kemble,
Munden, Fawcett, Emery, I^iston, and other dis-
tinguished performers. It was his business to see
as much good acting as he could, and he did see it.
Among other things, he saw the fine powers of
Elliston — who had taken the Surrey Tlieatre, where
the law allowed him to perform only burlettas —
wasted on ' Macbetli,' performed as a pantomime,
and on Captain Macheath, with Gay's pithy prose
thrown into jingling rhyme, The first public
experiment in the use of gas also attracted his
notice, in the shape of a star before a house in Pall
Mall, ' which relighted itself as the wind every
now and then blew out some of its jets.'

This visit over, young Macready had to begin
the work of life in earnest. The father was in
Lancaster Castle, a prisoner for debt, until set free
by the proceedings in bankruptcy, and the task of
working his company and keeping it together was
undertaken by his son. At Chester the struggle
began against heavy odds, but the young manager
contrived to make both ends meet. Newcastle, a
haven of greater promise, did not disappoint him.
His company was an unusually good one, with

LOCAL THEATRES BEST TRAINING 135

Conway, then young, handsome, ardent, at its head.
All went so well in his hands, that the son was able
to remit to his father three pounds a week ' in his
melancholy duresse at Lancaster,' and to carry on
his theatre with credit. Before the season closed
his father obtained his release, his certificate of
bankruptcy having been granted under circum-
stances which speak volumes for his integrity, and
which his son records with an honourable pride.

These were good days for the public of the
smaller towns — good also for the actors themselves,
and for the drama — by keeping up a supply of in-
telligent, well-trained, and respectable performers.

' At that time,' Mr. Macready says, ' a theatre
was considered indispensable in towns of very scanty
populations. The prices of admission varied from
.5s., 4s., or 3s. to boxes ; 2s. 6d. or 2s. to pit ; and Is.
to gallery. A sufficient number of theatres were
united in what was called a circuit, to occupy a
company during tlie whole year, so that a respect-
able player could calculate upon his weekly salary,
without default, from year's end to year's end ; and
the circuits, such as tliose of Norwich, York, Batli,
and Bristol, Exeter, Salisbury, Kent, Manchester,
Birmingham, etc., witli incomes rising from £70 to
£300 per annum, would be a sort of home to him,
so long as his conduct and industry maintained his
favour with his audiences. But beyond that, the
regularity of relieursal and tlie attention paid to the
production of plays, most of which came under tlie
class of the "regular drama," made a sort of school
for him in the repetition of liis cliaracters and the
criticism of his auditors, from his proficiency in

136 WILLIAM CHARLES MACREADY

which he looked to Covent Garden or Drury Lane
as the goal of his exertions. For instance, from
Exeter came Kean ; from Dublin INIiss O'Neill,
Conway, R. Jones, Lewis, W. Farren ; from York
Fawcett, C. Matthews, Emery, Harley, J. Kemble.
The distance from London was then so ^reat, and
the expense and fatigue of travelling was such as to
make a journey then more rare ; and the larger
towns, as York, Newcastle, Bath, Exeter, Norwich,
were centres or capitals of pro^ incial circles, to
which the county families resorted for the winter
season, or crowded to the public weeks of races and
assizes, when the assembly-rooms and the theatres
were the places of fashionable meeting.'*

When the elder Macready resumed the direction
of his theatre, his son, though relieved from business
responsibilities, continued to superintend the re-
hearsals ; and in the getting up of the melodramas,
pantomimes, etc., he ' was the instructor of the
performers.' No wonder he fell into the habit of
playing the schoolmaster to all about him, which
made him in after-years so obnoxious to his fellows.
The time for his own debut had now arrived. It
was made in the character of Romeo at Birming-
ham, where his father had again become manager.

* The writer has long held the opinion that a return to
the prevalence of local permanent companies under the old
system, as above explained by Mr. Macready, will alone lead
to the true reform of the theatrical profession. It is idle to
talk of a national theatre until we have trained actors worthy
to fill it. We have too many theatres already, and too many
actors, who go on the stage to make an income, not to practise
an art.

FIRST APPEARANCE ON STAGE 137

AVhat he tells of his feelings on the occasion con-
firms our conviction that inclination, quite as much
as duty, sent him upon the stage.

' The emotions I experienced on first crossing the
stage, and coming forward in face of the lights, and
the applauding audience, were almost overpowering.
There was a mist before my eyes. I seemed to see
nothing of the dazzling scene before me, and for
some time I was like an automaton moving in
certain defined limits. T went mechanically through
the variations in wliich I had drilled myself, and it
was not until the plaudits of the audience awoke
me from the kind of waking dream in which 1
seemed to be moving, that I gained my self-
possession, and really entered into the spirit of the
character, and, 1 may say, felt the passion I was to
represent. Every round of applause acted like
inspiration on me : I " trod on air," became another
being, or a happier self; and when the curtain fell
at the conclusion of the play, and the intimate
friends and performers crowded on the stage to
raise up the Juliet and myself, shaking my hands
with fervent congratulations, a lady asked me,
" Well, sir, how do you feel now ?" my boyish
answer was without disguise, " I feel as if I should
like to act it all over again." '

Once launched in the profession, Macready
worked at it with enthusiasm. Not content with
the regular work of the week, he used to lock liim-
self into the theatre after morning service on the
Sundays, and pace tlie stage in every direction to
give himself ease, and become familiar in his deport-
ment with exits and entrances, and with every

138 WITJ.IAM CHARLES MACREADY

variety of gesture and attitude. ' My characters,'
he adds, ' were all acted over and over, and. speeches
recited, till, tired out, I was glad to breathe the
fresh air again. This was for several years a
custom with me.' The manager's son was sure
to get quite his share of all the best parts, as well
as of the public favour; and so early as 1811 we
find him, while still only eighteen, risking his
honours at Newcastle in the part of Hamlet. It
was a success. All Hamlets are so, more or less.
His remarks on the occasion are much to the
purpose.

' The critic who had made a study of this master-
piece would predict with confidence a failure in
such an experiment, but he would not have taken
into account the support to the young aspirant
supplied by the genius of the poet. There is an
interest so deep and thrilling in the story, such
power in the situations, and such a charm in the
language, that with an actor possessed of energy,
a tolerable elocution, and some grace of deport-
ment, the character will sufficiently interpret itself
to the majority of an audience to win for its repre-
sentative, fi'om their delight, the reward of applause
really due to the poet's excellence. A total failure
in Hamlet is of rare occurrence. ... " There be
players that I have seen play, and heard others
praise, and that highly," in the character, who
could as soon explain and reconcile its seeming-
inconsistencies as translate a page of Sanscrit.
Dr. Johnson, who so lucidly describes the mind of
Polonius, has left us in his observations clear proof
that he did not understand that of Hamlet ; and
audiences have been known to cheer innovations

EARLY SUCCESS 139

and traps for applause, which tlie following words
of the text have shown to be at utter variance with
the author's intention ! My crude essay, like those
of many others, was pronounced a success : but the
probing inquiry and laborious study of my after-
life have manifested to me how little was due to
my o^\Tl skill in that early personation.'

If we are to believe Mr. IVIacready's ' Reminis-
cences,' amidst all the scenic triumphs of his youth,
as well as of a later day, he never thoroughly
enjoyed his work. About this time he encounters
Mrs. Whitlock, one of John Kemble's sisters,
who, after making a comfortable independence in
America, had settled with her husband in New-
castle. With something of the Kemble manner,
she had none of the family genius. She was old
and stout, but her love of acting was so great as to
blind her to her disqualifications for the heroines of
tragedy.

' She has told me,' says IVIacready, ' that when
on the stage slie felt like a being of another world !
How often ha\e I envied in others, less fortunate
than myself in public favour, this passionate de\'o-
tion to the stage ! To ntifsclf its drawbacks nccrc
ever present.'

If this were really the case, it is nothing short of
a miracle that Macready ever rose to the eminence
he did, and his admirers, who believed the stage
owed him so much, both as manager and actor,
may complain that lie kept up the delusion of his
interest in the drama so well. But for ourselves

140 WTTJJAM CHART.ES MACREADY

we regard this as only one out of many splenetic
outbursts against an art which he had seen fall,
during his later years, for the most part into
incapable hands, coloured by that soreness about
the actor's undefined social status which grew with
time into a disease with him. The drawbacks of
the stage could liave been little present to his mind
when, in 1812, he found himself cast to play with
Mrs. Siddons, as she took Newcastle on her way to
London, where she was about to take her leave of
the stage. The plays were ' The Gamester ' and
' Douglas.' Young Norval in the latter was one
of Macready's favourite parts ; but he might well
have been appalled, as he says he was, at the
thought of playing Beverley, and for the first time,
to the Mrs. Beverley of the great actress. It was
one of her greatest parts. Leigh Hunt, writing
in 1807, classes it with her Lady Macbeth. He
cites : ' The bewildered melancholy of Lady Mac-
beth walking in her sleep, or the widow's mute
stare of perfected misery by tlie corpse of the
gamester Beverley, two of the sublimest pieces of
acting on the English stage,' as the highest illus-
tration of Mrs. Siddons' power in the natural
expression of profound emotion, which he con-
sidered to be ' the result of genius rather than of
grave study.'

Mr. Macready writes, as he always spoke, of
Mrs. Siddons with enthusiasm. \'\^ith fear and
trembling he was sent by his father to her hotel

ACTS WITH MRS. SIDDOXS 141

to rehearse his scenes with her. ' I hope,
Mr. IVlacready,' was her good-natured salutation
to him, 'you have brought some hartshorn and
water with you, as I am told you are terribly
fi'ightened at me.' Some further remarks she
made about his being a very young husband.
Had he not been the manager's son, the remark
would in all likelihood have been more pointed
than it was. It could not have been pleasant for
an actress of her mature and stately proportions to
find herself played to by a comparative boy as a
husband. The business of the morning over, he
took his leave with fear and trembling to steady
his nerves for the coming night. He got through
his first scene Mdth applause. In the next, his first
with Mrs. Beverley, he was so overcome by fear
that his memory failed him, and he stood bewildered.
• Mrs. Siddons kindly whispered the word to me
(which I never could take from the prompter), and
the scene proceeded.'

' What eulogy can do justice to her persona-
tions ? . . . \Vill any verbal account of the most
striking features of " the human face divine "
convey a distinct portraiture of the individual ?
How much less can any force of description
imprint on the imagination the sudden but thril-
ling effects of tone or look, of port or gesture, or
even of the silence so often significative in the
development of human passion ! . . . I will not
presume to catalogue the merits of this unrivalled
artist, but may point out, as a guide to others, one
great excellence that distinguished all her persona-

U2 WILLI AJM CHAR[.ES MACREADY

tions. Tliis was the unity of design, the just
relation of all parts to the wliole, that made us
forget the actress in the character she assumed.
Throughout the tragedy of " The (Gamester,"
devotion to her husband stood out as the main-
spring of her actions, the ruling passion of her
being ; apparent when reduced to poverty in her
graceful and cheerful submission to the lot to
which his vice has subjected her, in her fond
excuses of his ruinous weakness, in her conciliating
expostulations with his angry impatience, in her
indignant repulse of Stukely's advances, w^hen in
tlie awful dignity of outraged virtue she impre-
cates the vengeance of Heaven upon his guilty
head. The climax to her sorrows and sufferings
was in the dungeon, when on her knees, holding
her dying husband, he dropped lifeless from her
arms. Her glaring eyes were fixed in stony blank-
ness on his face ; the powers of life seemed sus-
pended in her ; her sister and Lewson gently raised
her, and slowly led her unresisting from the body,
lier gaze never for an instant averted from it ;
when they reached the prison door she stopped, as
if awakened from a trance, uttered a shriek of
agony that would have pierced the hardest heart,
and, rushing from them, flung herself as if for
union in death, on the prostrate form before her.

' She stood alone on her height of excellence.
Her acting was perfection ; and as I recall it, I do
not w^onder, novice as I w^as, at my perturbation
when on the stage with her. But in the progress
of the play I gradually regained more and more
my self-possession, and in the last scene, as she
stood by the side-wing waiting for the cue of her
entrance, on my utterance of the words, " My wife
and sister ! well — well ! there is but one pang more,
and then farewell, world !" she raised her hands,

ADVICE OF MRS. SIDDONS 143

clapping loudly, and calling out. '' Bravo, sir,
bravo I" in sight of part of the audience, who
joined in her applause.'

This incident of the ' Bravo, sir, bravo !' comes
with a chilling effect after so much to make us
think that the actress was lost in her part. It
might at least have been kept out of sight of the
audience, to whose tearful sympathies she was the
next moment to make so terrible an appeal.
' Douglas ' went off' without a hitch. The great
lady sent for her Norval after the play, and in
her grandiose manner gave liim some excellent
advice.

' " You are in the right way," she said, " but
remember what I say,— study, study, study, and do
not marry till you are thirty. I remember Avhat it
was to be obliged to study at nearly your age with
a young family about me. Beware of that ; keep
your mind on your art, do not remit your study,
and you are certain to succeed. . . . God bless
you !" Her words lived Mith me, and often in
moments of despondency have come to cheer me.
Her acting was a re\'elation to me, which ever after
had its influence on me in the study of my art.
Ease, grace, untiring energy through all the varia-
tions qf hufiian passion, blended into that grand and
massi\e style, had been witli her the result of
patient apphcation.'

The words in italics are surely the mere hyperbole
of praise. Mrs. Siddons was no doubt supreme
within her range ; but lier range was narrow. She
had dignity, grandeur, force— tenderness also in

144 WILLIAM CHARLES MACREADY

many of its phases. Constance, Queen Katharine,
I^ady JNIaebetli, V^ohimnia, and characters of the
same class, were witliin her means, physical and
mental. Rut there was a wide sweep of passion
outside these limits which she could not reach. Of
humour, the primary requisite for the treatment of
Shakespeare, she was devoid ; and in the portrayal
of playful affection, and of what I^eigh Hunt calls
the ' amatory pathetic,' she wholly failed. She
could, as Hunt says, ' overpower, astonish, affect ;
but she could not win.' What else might be
expected from her ' grand and massive style '?
From her acting Macready says he received a great
lesson. ' Where opportunity presented itself,' he
says, 'she never failed to bring out the passion of
the scene and the meaning of the poet by gesture
and action— more powerfully, I am convinced, than
he originally conceived it.' This is the special gift
of the great actor. As Voltaire said to Rrizard, of
the Comedie Fran^aise, ' Vous m'avez fait voir,
dans le role de Rrutus, des beautes que je n'avais
pas aper^ues en le composant.' Mrs. Siddons had
another great merit, which Charles Young tersely
expressed by saying, ' She never indulged in
imagination at the expense of truth.' Macready
says the same thing in a more roundabout way.

' In giving life, and, as it were, reality to the
cliaracter she represented, she never resorted to
trick, or introduced what actors call *' business,"
frequently inappropriate, and resulting from the

MRS. JORDAN 14.5

want of intelligence to penetrate the depth of the
emotions to be portrayed.'

Of Mrs. Jordan, whom he acted with soon after-
wards at Leicester, Mr. Macready gives us some
pleasant glimpses. The gayest, merriest, most spon-
taneous of actresses, she left no point unstudied,
spared no pains to insure her effects.

* At rehearsal,' he says, ' I remarked, as I watched
this charming actress intently through her first
scene, how minute and how particular her directions
were ; nor would she be satisfied, till by repetition
she had seen the business executed exactly to her
wdsh. The moving picture, the very life of the
scene, was perfect in her mind, and she transferred
it in all its earnestness to every movement on the
stage. AVith a spirit of fun that would have out-
laughed Puck himself, there was a discrimination,
an identity with her character, an artistic arrange-
ment of the scene that made all appear spontaneous
and accidental, though elaborated with the greatest
care. Her voice was one of the most melodious I
ever heard ; . . . and who that once heard that
laugh of hers could ever forget it ? ... so rich, so
apparently irrepressible, so deliciously self-enjoying,
as to be at all times irresistible.'

What this laugh was, and the secret of its charm,
Leigh Hunt has told us in even happier language :

' Her laughter is the happiest and most natural
on the stage. ... It intermingles itself with her
words, as fresh ideas afford her fresh merriment ;
slie does not so much indulge as she seems unable
to help it ; it increases, it lessens with her fancy,
and when you expect it no longer, according to tlie

10

14(; WIIJ.TAM CHARLES MACREADY

usual habit of the stage, it sparkles forth at little
intervals, as recollection revives it, like flame from
half-smothered embers. This is tlie laughter of the
feelings ; and it is this predominance of the heart in
all she says and does that renders her the most
delightful actress in the Donna Violante of the
" A¥onder," and the Clara of " Matrimony," and in
twenty other characters which ought to be more
lady-like than she can make them, and which
acquire a better gentility with others.'

Oh for the return of such acting and such
criticism ! Macready's ambition carried him, even
in these salad days, into ' Richard III.,' the Antony
of ' Antony and Cleopatra,' for neither of which he
owns he M^as at all fitted. He even undertook
the revival of ' Richard H.,' and produced it at
Leicester, with himself as Richard. Since Shake-
speare's days it had not been seen upon the stage.
It was a complete success, and proved the attraction
of the season. In later years it was one of his
favourite parts ; Edmund Kean also numbered it
on his list ; but the play has never taken hold of
the stage. Why this is so, Mr. Macready states,
with the acuteness which, as a rule, distinguishes
his criticisms on plays and books :

' It has often excited the wonder of Shakespearian
critics, that it should have lain so long neglected,
and still should enjoy so little popularity. The
passion of its language and the beauty of its poetry
(considered apart from effect in representation)
have dazzled its readers, and blinded them to the
absence of any marked idiosyncrasy in the persons

SHAKESPEARE'S RICHARD U.' 147

of the drama, and to the want of strong purpose in
any of them. Not one does anything to cause a
result. All seem floated along on the tides of cir-
cumstance. Nothing has its source in premedita-
tion. Richard's acts are those of idle, almost
childish, levity, wanton caprice, or unreflecting
injustice. He is alternately confidently boastful
and pusillanimously despondent. His extravagant
persuasions of kingly inviolability, and of heavenly
interposition in his behalf, meet with no response in
the sympathies of an audience. His grief is that of
a spoiled, passionate boy.'

After illustrating his proposition in detail, he
proceeds :

' In all the greater plays of Shakespeare, purpose
and will, the general foundations of character, are
the engines which set action at work. In " King
Richard II." we look for these in vain. Macbeth,
Othello, lago, Hamlet, Richard III., etc., both
think and do; but Richard II., Bolingbroke, York,
and the rest, though they talk so well, do little else
than talk : nor can all the charm of composition
redeem, in a dramatic point of view, the weakness
resulting from this accident in a play's construction.
In none of his personations did the late Edmund
Kean display more masterly elocution than in the
third act of "Richard II."; but the admiration he
excited could not maintain a place for the work in
the list of acting plays among the favourite dramas
of Shakespeare.'

In 1813, the elder iMacready having become the
tenant of the Glasgow and Dumfries theatres, liis
son made acquaintance with a fresh public, and
laid the foundation of his popularity in the West of

10—2

148 AVILLIAM CHARLES MACREADY

Scotland. He remembered with peculiar satis-
faction the knot of play-goers who clustered in
corners of the Cilasgow pit, and by their murmurs
of approval encouraged the young actor with the
belief that they were giving their thoughts to what
was going on before them. The theatre was the
largest out of the Metropohs ; and the necessity
which he felt himself under, of more careful study
and practice, to satisfy the demands of an audience
critical as well as enthusiastic, had an excellent
effect in advancing his mastery of his art. Here
he had to measure his strength against young
Betty, of whose energy, dignity, and pathos he
speaks warinly — admitting, at the same time, that
Betty did not study improvement in his art, and
consequently ' deteriorated by becoming used up in
the frequent repetition of the same parts.'

Hitherto Macready had lived with his father.
The temper of neither was good. The infirmity
of his own the son declares ' to have been the
source of most of the misery he had known in life.'
But when passion got the better of his father,
' there was no curb to the violence of his language.'
Each had strong opinions ; and as they did not
always run in the same groove, the son very often
provoked the displeasure of the father. ' If two
men,' as Dogberry says, 'ride upon a horse, one
must ride behind '; and we can well believe that
the younger Macready was not likely to accept the
hindmost place. He was now, too, approaching

EDMUND KEAN 149

manhood ; and after an angry parley, father and
son parted, on the understanding that the latter
should thencefortli li\'e apart, and recei\ e a salary
of £3 a week. A truce was patched up for a time
after the return of the company to their head-
quarters at Newcastle ; but, with such jarring
elements, it could be of only brief duration. Mean-
while the son did his best to keep up the reputa-
tion of his father's theatres, taking on himself a
heavy share of the work, writing pieces from Scott's
' Marmion ' and ' Rokeby,' and rearranging others
to meet the exigencies of the hour. In the midst
of his labours, to spur his ambitious hopes, the
tidings reached him of the triumph at Drury Lane,
as Shylock, of the insignificant little Alonzo of the
Birmingham Theatre. His Othello followed, justly
recognised, oMacready says — and for once he does
not qualify his praise — 'as a masterpiece of
tragic power and skill.' Charles Kemble and his
wife visit Newcastle in ' engagements not very
lucrative.' His Mirabel, in Farquhar's ' Inconstant,'
is spoken of — how truly some will yet remember —
as *a most finished piece of acting.' His Rich-
mond is ' chivalrous and spirited,' his Cassio
'incomparable.' The general remark that 'he
was a first-rate actor in second-rate parts ' is a
true one. 15ut who may now liope to see the'tirst-
rate parts filled on the same scale of excellence ?
Emery and Young also pass across the theatrical
horizon of Newcastle, 'i'he acting of the former

150 WlLT.lxVM CHARLES MACREADY

in the ' Yorksliire Farmer ' was so lifelike, and his
natural manner so irresistible, that Macready found
it impossible, in playing with him, to suppress upon
the stage the laughter he provoked. The plays in
whieh he won his fame have passed away ; but in
one of them. Tyke, in the ' School of Reform,' the
tradition of his excellence is still strong. In it,
Macready says, 'he rose to the display of terrific
power.' Of Charles Young, IMacready cannot bring
himself to speak with the same heartiness. He has
nothing better to say of one of the most refined
and, at the same time, impressive of actors than
that he was,

' of course, greatly and deservedly applauded. His
grand declamatory style wound up the speeches
of Zanga and Mortimer with telhng effect. His
Richard was not good ; and his performance of
Hamlet (a character that so few are found to agree
upon) had, as usual, its very numerous admirers.'

But the truth is, and it is a melancholy one, that
wherever professional rivalry intervened, Macready's
judgment was warped. It comes out most pain-
fully in an entry in his diary, so late as July 5,
1856. The tidings of Young's death, at the age of
seventy-nine, have just reached him, and he writes :

' My struggle in professional life was against him,
and for several years we were in rivalry together ;
disliking, of course, but still respecting one another.
. . . No two men could have differed more in the
character of their minds, in their tastes, pursuits.

CHARLES YOUNG 151

and dispositions ; but his prudence, his consistency
in his own pecuUar views, and the uniform respecta-
biUty of his conduct, engaged and held fast my
esteem for him, from the time that the excitable
feelings of immediate rivalry had passed away.'

A pitiable confession for himself; an unwarrant-
able assumption that it was, 'of course,' equally
true of Young. Young's sweet and generous
nature was ever ready to see and to delight in the
merits of a brother actor. The finest things that
have been said of Mrs. Siddons were said by him.
' Of Kean,' his son tells us, in his delightful and
only too brief ' Memoir,' ' he was a great admirer,
although by no means blind to his faults.' It was
of Kean he made the remark — and experience un-
happily confirms its general application — that the
passages on wliich he (Kean) liad bestowed the
most pains, and which were chastely and beauti-
fully delivered, he never got a hand for ; while his
delivery of those which, to use his own phrase,
caused ' the house to rise at him,' were in bad taste
and meretricious. This qualified admiration, his
son says, was not due to jealousy, adding :

' I really do not think he was open to that
suspicion, for I have never known him grudge his
praise to Charles Kemble, or William Macready,
who came more frequently into competition with
him.'

Young and Macready were, indeed, as unlike in
the characters of their minds and dispositions as

152 WILLIAJNI CHARLES MACREADY

they were in their style as actors. There was an
unselfish nobleness in Young, a delight in all that
was good in others, which gave a graciousness and
charm to the man and to the actor quite peculiar
to himself. To young Macready he gave, in these
early days, a piece of advice, of which the justice
will be felt by those who remember Macready's
prevailing fault even in his maturer years : ' Young
gentleman, you expend a degree of power unneces-
sarily ; half the energy and fire that you employ
would be more than sufficient. You will only
waste your strength if you do not bear this in mind.'
^lacready had up to this time worked loyally for
his father, and repaid all, and more than all, that
had been expended upon that education at Rugby,
which was to prove of priceless value to his future
career. Fresh disputes between them arose.
Neither would give way, and Macready left home
upon an engagement for Bath. 'I'he theatre there
was at that time regarded as a sort of antechamber
to the great patent theatres of London, 'and the
judgment of a Bath audience a pretty sure presage
of the decision of the IMetropolis.' The young
actor stood the scrutiny of this critical public. He
was hailed with ' compliments, invitations, troops
of friends, and all the flattering evidences of
unanimous success ' ; but

' One bitter o'er the flowers its bubbling venom threw.'
A Zoilus of the press hit him in his tenderest

ENGAGED AT COVEXT GARDEN 153

point by saying of his Beverley, that it would have
been altogether excellent, if not perfect, ' but for
the unaccommodating disposition of Nature in the
formation of his face.' The rumour of his success
soon spread. IMr. Harris, of Co vent Garden,
opened negotiations with him ; and an engagement
for seven weeks in Dublin, at £50 a week, was the
best assurance that he had now fairly got his foot
on the first round of the ladder. The negotiations
for Covent Garden ha\ang taken him to London,
where Kean and JMiss O'Neill were crowding the
two great houses, the iinpressions they produced
on hiin are well described :

' Places were taken one night at Drury I^ane for
"Richard III.," and for another Fawcett procured
seats for us in the orchestra of Covent Garden, to
see the Juliet of JMiss O'Neill to the best advantage.
Kean was engaged to sup with my father at the
York Hotel after the performance of " Richard," to
which I went with no ordinary feelings of curiosity.
Cooke's representation of tlie part I had been
present at several times, and it lived in my memory
in all its sturdy vigour. . . . There was a solidity
of deportment and manner, and at the same time
a sort of unctuous enjoyment of his successful craft,
in the soliloquizing stage villainy of Cooke, which
gave po\\'erful and rich effect to the sneers and
overbearing retorts of Cibber's hero, and certain
points (as the peculiar mode of delivering a passage
is technically plirased), traditional from Garrick,
were made with consummate skill, significance, and
power.

' Kean's conception wjjs decidedly more Shake-

154 VA II.LIAM CHARLES MACKEADY

spearian. He hurried you along in his resolute
course with a spirit that brooked no delay. In
inflexibility of will and sudden grasp of expedients
he suggested the idea of a feudal Napoleon. His
personation was throughout consistent, and he
was only inferior to Cooke where he attempted
points upon the same ground as his distinguished
predecessor.

' My father and self were betimes in our box.
Pope was the lachrymose and rather tedious per-
former of Henry VI. But when the scene changed,
and a little keenly visaged man rapidly bustled
across the stage, I felt there was meaning in the
alertness of his manner and the quickness of his
step. As the play proceeded I became more and
more satisfied that there was a mind of no common
order. In his angry complaining of Nature's in-
justice to his bodily imperfections, as he uttered the
line, " To shrink my arm up like a withered shrub,"
he remained looking on the limb for some moments
with a sort of bitter discontent, and then struck it
back in angry disgust. My father, who sat behind
me, touched me, and whispered, " It's very poor !"
'' Oh, no !" I replied, " it is no common thing," for
I found myself stretching over the box to observe
him. The scene with Lady Anne was entered on
with evident confidence, and was well sustained,
in the affected earnestness of petulance, to its
successful close. In tempting Buckingham to the
murder of the children, he did not impress me as
Cooke was wont to do, in whom the sense of the
crime was apparent in the gloomy hesitation with
which he gave reluctant utterance to the deed of
blood. Kean's manner was consistent with his
conception, proposing their death as a political
necessity, and sharply requiring it as a business to
be done. The two actors were equally effective in

MEETING WITH EDMUND KEAN 155

their respective \iews of the unscrupulous tyrant ;
but leaving to Cooke the more prosaic version of
Gibber, it would have been desirable to have seen
the energy and restless activity of Kean giving life
to racy language and scenes of direct and varied
agency in the genuine tragedy with which his whole
manner and appearance were so much more in
harmony. In his studied mode of delivering the
passages, " Well ! as you guess ?" and " Off with
his head ! So much for Buckingham !" he could
not approach the searching, sarcastic incredulity, or
the rich vindictive chuckle of Cooke ; but in the
bearing of the man throughout, as the intriguer,
the tyrant, and the warrior, he seemed never to
relax the ardour of his pursuit, presenting the life
of the usurper as one unbroken whole, and closing
it with a death picturesquely and poetically grand.
Many of the Kemble school resisted conviction in
his merits, but the fact that he made me feel was
an argument to enrol me with tlie majority on the
indisputable genius lie displayed.

' We retired to the hotel as soon as the curtain
fell, and were soon joined by Kean, accompanied,
or rather attended, by Pope. I need not say witli
what intense scrutiny I regarded him as we shook
hands on our nmtual introduction. The mild and
modest expression of his Italian features, and his
unassuming manner, whicli I might perhaps justly
describe as partaking in some degree of shyness,
took me by surprise, and 1 remarked with special
interest the indifference with which he endured the
fulsome flatteries of Pope. He was very sparing of
words during, and for some time after, supper ; but
about one o'clock, when the glass had circulated
pretty freely, he became animated, Huent, and
communicative. His anecdotes were related with
a lively sense of the ridiculous ; in the melodies he

150 WII.LIAIM CHARLES MACREADY

saii^' tliere was a toucliing grace, and his poAvers of
mimicry were most iuimorously or happily exerted
in an admirahle imitation of Braliam ; and in a
story of Incledon acting Steady the Quaker at
l^ocliester, without any rehearsal — where, in singing
the favourite air, " ^^'hen the lads of the village so
merrily, ah !" he heard himself, to his dismay and
consternation, accompanied by a single bassoon, —
the music of his voice, his perplexity at each
recurring sound of the bassoon, his undertone
maledictions on the self-satisfied musician, the
peculiarity of his habits, all were hit off' with
a humour and an exactness that equalled the best
display Mathews ever made, and almost convulsed
us with laughter. It was a memorable evening,
the first and last 1 ever spent in private with this
extraordinary man.'

This animated sketch is followed by an account
of JNIiss O'Neill's Juliet, not so discriminating, but,
naturally, more glowing. The writer was young,
susceptible, and he would have been more or less
than mortal, if admiration for the beauty of the
woman had not heightened the estimate of the
actress.

Two years were yet to elapse before Macready
was to face the ordeal of a London audience. He
stood out for terms which the managers there were
not prepared to yield. The Drury Lane Com-
mittee was appealed to by his friends, and one of
them having urged with Lord Byron (who was
upon it), in addition to the young aspirant's pro-
fessional merits and successes, the further plea that
iNIr. INlacready was ' a very moral man,' drew from

HIS ORESTES, OTHELLO, lAGO 157

his lordship the very practical reply : ' Ah ! then I
suppose he asks £5 a week more for his morality.'
The interval was spent in most useful practice in
the chief provincial theatres ; but at length, his
cautious scruples having been overcome, and good
terms secured, JNIr. JVIacready appeared at Covent
Garden as Orestes, in ' The Distressed Mother,' on
September 16, 1816, He was received with the
applause always liberally bestowed on every new
performer, and this Kean, M'^ho was conspicuous in
a private box, helped to swell. Better still, the
critics of the press admitted his claims to dis-
tinction ; Hazlitt, one of the best of them, described
him ' as by far the best tragic actor that has come
out in our remembrance, with the exception of
Kean.' Othello, his next part of importance, con-
firmed the favourable estimate. The Times gave
liim the highest praise in saying of it : ' The actor's
judgment is shown in his practice of employing
all his force in those passages of noiseless but
intense feeling, and exhibiting it in all its sublime
depths, if not by a sudden look or startling gesture,
yet by a condensation of vigorous utterance and
masculine expression, from which few will be
disposed to appeal.' In lago, which in after-
years was one of his finest studies, he failed
by liis own admission. Hazlitt 's remark that
' Young in Othello was like a great humming-
top, and Macready in lago like a mischievous
boy wliipping him,' he owns was quite as compli-

ir,S AAaLT.lAM ( HAIU.KS MACREADY

mentary as his own share of the performance
deserved.

Miss O'Neill, Jolin Kenible, Young, and Charles
Kemble, were all at Covent Garden, and in the
height of their popularity, and Maeready found
that he nuist be content to drop into a com-
paratively subordinate place, Kean, at Drury
Lane, divided with them the pubhc enthusiasm ;
and he had consequently abundant leisure to profit
by the study of the performances of his great com-
peers. By this we are gainers, in a few excellent
pages of description, which bring their distinctive
qualities vividly before us, and which are of especial
value from the pen of one so well qualified to
judge. But this enforced banishment to the second
rank was wormwood to Maeready, whose way it
was to drop into despondency whenever things did
not go exactly as he wished. It actually led him
to cast about in his thoughts 'in quest of some
other mode of life less subject to those alternations
of hope and dejection, which so frequently and so
painfully acted on my temper.' While in this
mood he was summoned to the reading of a
tragedy by a new author. This was Richard Lalor
Shell, with whose dramatic successes Maeready
was destined to become henceforth in a great
measure identified. The play was ' The Apostate."
There were parts in it for Young, C. Kemble, and
Miss O'Neill ; that of Pescara was assigned to
Maeready. He took it 'mournfully and despon-

ADMIRED BY LUDWIG TTECK 159

dently.' Charles Kemble, a better judge of what
was to be done with it, cheered him by saying,
' Why, WilHam, it is no doubt a disagreeable part,
but there is passion in it.' This was true ; and the
part, odious as it was, gave Mr. Macready liis first
real hold on the London public. Ludwig Tieck,
who saw him in it, speaks of it in his ' Drama-
turgische Blatter ' as a performance ' so vehement,
truthful, and powerful,' that, for the first time in
England, he felt himself recalled to the best days
of German acting. ' If the young man,' he adds,
' continues in this style, he will go far.' The
impression produced on Tieck must have been
a strong one, for he told Goethe's biographer,
Mr. Lewes, many years afterwards, that he liked
Macready better than either Kemble or Kean. It
was, in some respects, unlucky for Macready that
his very success in portraying the villainous passions
of Pescara led to his having a series of others of
a kindred character assigned to him. But if this
had its bad side, it also had its good ; for by the
intensity and picturesqueness which he thrcAv into
these and other characters of a somewhat melo-
dramatic cast, he made more progress in public
favour than he would probably have done in the
great characters of Shakespeare, where, rightly or
wrongly, he would have suffered by comparison
with established favourites.

In 1817 John Kemble gave his last performances.
Asthma and a general decline of health had left

160 WrUJAISI CHARTERS MACRKADY

but a wreck — a splendid one, it is true — of his
former self. Of all his parts, Macready gives the
preference to King John, >A''olsey, The Stranger,
Rrutiis, ' and his peerless Coriolaniis.' He was
present at his last performance of Macbeth, and on
this occasion Mrs. Siddons was unwise enough to
appear as Lady Macbeth. 1'he contrast with her
former self was pitiable. ' It was not,' he says, ' a
performance, but a mere repetition of the poet's
text — no flash, no sign of her all-subduing genius !'
Her brother languished through the greater part of
a play which demands all the vigour of a powerful
physique.

' Through the whole first four acts the play
moved heavily on ; Kemble correct, tame, and
ineffective ; but in the fifth, when the news was
brought, "The Queen, my Lord, is dead!" he seemed
struck to the heart ; gradually collecting himself, he
sighed out, "■ She should have died hereafter !" —
then, as if with the inspiration of despair, he hurried
out, distinctly and pathetically the lines :

' " To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow," etc.

rising to a climax of desperation that brought down
the enthusiastic cheers of the closely-packed theatre.
All at once he seemed carried away by the genius
of the scene. At the tidings of " the wood of
Birnam moving," he staggered, as if the shock had
struck the very seat of life, and in the bewilderment
of fear and rage could just ejaculate the words,
" Liar and slave !" then lashing himself into a state of
frantic rage, ended the scene in perfect triumph.
His shrinking from Macduff when the charm on

AN ADMIRABLE CRITIC 161

which his Hfe hung was broken by the declaration
that his antagonist was " not of woman born," was a
masterly stroke of art ; his subsequent defiance was
most heroic ; and at his death Charles Kemble
received liim in his arms, and laid him gently on the
gi'ound, his physical powers being unequal to
further effort.'

Mr. Macready nowhere appears to more advan-
tage in liis reminiscences than in passages like this.
AVhen no personal feeling interfered, his criticisms
as a rule are excellent. They rested, both where
books and acting were concerned, on wide observa-
tion and careful study. But although his active
life, as he himself says, had been devoted chiefly to
the study of poetry and playing, he always speaks
with the modesty of true knowledge of his own
powers as a critic. The standards by wliich he
judged were high, for he well knew that on the
stage, as in books, ' le moyen le plus sur,' as Clairon
says, ' d'ancantir le merite, est de proteger la
mediocrite.' Knowing as he did, that of all arts
his own was the most complex, and rested on facts
of Nature which few are capable even of observing,
lie was entitled to speak with some contempt of the
opinion prevalent in England, ' that no particular
study is requisite to make a critic or connoisseur of
acting.' Tliat acting in France and Germany still
keeps a high level is in some measure due to the
fact that it has its critics there who know when and
wliy to praise or to condemn.

The production of 'Rob Roy,' on March 12,

11

162 WILLIAM CHARLES MACREADY

1818, enabled Mr. Macready to make another
decided upward step in public favour. In this
character he broke the spell which had begun to
hang round him, ' as the undisputed representative
of the disagreeable,' and which had seemed to
weigh him down. The mingled humour, pathos,
and passion of the character exactly fitted him.
Its rugged heroism, dashed with the poetical
element, stood well out in his somewhat abrupt and
impulsive mode of treatment. Barry Cornwall, the
fast friend of his after-life, wrote a sonnet about it,
praising 'the buoyant air,' the 'passionate tone,' that
breathed about it and lit up the actor's eye ' with
fire and freedom.' This success revived Macready 's
hopes, and encouraged him to ' bide his time.'
Amurath, in another of Shell's now forgotten plays,
' Bellamira, or the Fall of Tunis,' enabled him soon
after to score a fresh success. ' Macready,' wrote
the Times ' quite surpassed himself in the cool,
remorseless villain, regarding his victim with the
smile of a demon.'

The next season saw the production of the most
successful of SheiFs plays, ' Evadne, or the Statue,'
in which some fine situations, splendidly treated
by Miss O'Neill, Young, Charles Kemble, and
Macready, concealed that inherent weakness of both
plot and dialogue which have consigned it, with its
fellows, to unregrettable oblivion. Here, as usual,
Ludovico, Macready 's part, was the villain of the
piece. Thenext new piece was JMathurin's ' Fredolfo,'

MAKES STEADY ADVANCE 163

in which there were no less than three villains.
The worst of the three, Wallenberg, *a very
\'oluptuary in villainy, whom it was not possible
the taste of any audience could tolerate,' fell of
course to Macready. The play struggled through
to the fifth act. Here ^^^allenberg, under circum-
stances of more than oNIathurinian atrocity, had to
kill the liero, • upon which the pit got up with a
perfect yell of indignation, sucli as, I fancy, was
never before heard in a theatre.' The curtain fell
for the first and last time upon the catastrophe.
Such parts as Posthumus in ' Cymbeline,' or Cassius
in • Julius Caesar,' however, came in to soothe the
disappointed ambition of the young actor. But it
was not till the winter of 1819 that his chance
came of being recognised as a Shakespearian actor.
To his consternation, he found himself one day
announced for Gloster, in ' Richard III.' It was no
ordinary trial, with the fresh fame of Kean in the
part staring him in the face. However, he was
committed to the public, and must screw up ' each
corporal agent to the temble feat ' :

' All that history could gi\e me I had already
ferreted out ; and for my portrait of the character
— the self-reliant, wily, quick-sighted, decisive, in-
flexible Plantagenet — I went direct to the true
source of inspiration, the ^rcat original, endeavour-
ing to carry its spirit through the sententious and
stagy lines of Cihber, not searching for particular
'• points "' to make, but rendering the hypocrisy of
the man deceptive and persuasive in its earnestness.

11—2

164 WILLIAM CHARLES MACREADY

and presenting him in the execution of his will as
acting with hghtning-Hke rapidity.'

His triumph was complete. It overcame even
those who had hitherto thought hghtly of his powers.
Among these, apparently, was Leigh Hunt. ' We
thought liim a man of feeling,' he MTote in the next
Ea:aminer, " but little able to give a natural ex-
pression to it, and so taking the usual refuge in
declamation. . . . AA^e expected to find vagueness
and generality, and we found truth of detail. AVe
expected to find declamation, and we found thoughts
giving a soul to words.'

Covent Garden Theatre had been for some time
in so languishing a state that the company were
playing on reduced salaries. Macready's success
turned the tide ; the exchequer was replenished,
and by common consent he now felt himself the
leading actor of the theatre. The ball once started
kept rolling. In Coriolanus he won his next honours ;
and to confirm him in his place, Ivnowles's ' \^irginius,'
with its fresh and forcible if somewhat flashy style,
gave him a character which especially fitted him
in all his strongest points. ' Austere, tender,
familiar, elevated, mingling at once terror and
pathos,' was the just description given of it by a
critic of the day. It spoke home to people's hearts,
and in Macready's treatment no play of modern
times has drawn more tears, or more truly touched
the springs of pity and terror.

From this time JNIacready's position was assured ;

HIS CHOICE OF A WIFE 165

and allo\\n ng for the vicissitudes of life, and of his
profession, he became a prosperous, and, but for
his own desponding and querulous disposition,
might have been a happy, man. He rose at once
in market value. Engagements poured in upon
him, and he began to lay the foundation of the
comfortable independence which he ultimately
secured. Mrs. Siddons' prudent counsel not to
marry before thirty had never been forgotten ;
not that Cupid had not in the meantime tapped
him more than once upon the shoulder. And
when the time came, when forbearance seemed
to be no longer necessary, his choice of a wife
was characteristic of his passion for supremacy.
She was a child of nine when he first came
across her in 181.5, playing a child's part in one
of his scenes. She was imperfect in her words,
and lie tells us, that he ' scolded her on coming
off the stage for lier neglect, which he was
afterwards sorry for, as it cost her many tears.'
Five or six years afterwards they met on the stage
at Aberdeen, where she had to play liis daughter
in ' Virginius.' Her beauty and intelligence
attracted him, and his interest was deepened by
finding that she was the support of her family.
This interest led to a correspondence, in which
the tutor de\eloped into the lover. He would have
married her in 1820, and indeed went to Worthing,
where she was, for the purpose. His sister went
with him to be introduced to his future bride.

!()(> WTT.LIAM CHARLKS MACREADV

Wliat ensued had much better, we think, have
been left untold. The ladies conceived an instant
and mutual aversion for each other. The marriage
was put off, and the young lady was sent to a
boarding school, apparently to get educated to
INIiss Macready's satisfaction. She aided the
paternally-minded lover ' in his duties of tutorage
to his lovely and docile Griselda ;' and eighteen
months afterwards, the sister having in the mean-
time declared herself satisfied, these patient lovers
were married at St. Pancras Church.

Macready was a Liberal and something more
in politics, as so many men are who, like him,
resent not having been born of gentle blood. In
his diary, on December 30 1835, apropos of the
President's speech, he writes: 'I read it through,
and think it is to be lamented that European
countries cannot learn the lesson of self-govern-
ment from our wiser and happier brothers of the
West.' The remark does not say much for his
political sagacity; and a rough experience of
American mobs, to be afterwards mentioned,
cured him very effectually of his regret, that we
had gone on governing ourselves in our own way.
In 1826, and again in 1843-1844, when he visited
the States, he was received with enthusiasm, and
in a literal sense had secured 'golden opinions
from all sorts of people.' The best men in the
country had held out the hand of friendship to
him. He had even thought for a time of settling

PERFORMS IN PARIS 167

there and forgetting England, wdth its mortifica-
tions and its social distinctions, which were so
abhorrent to his spirit.

Msits to Italy in 1822, and again in 1827, enabled
Macready to gi'atify his love for art, and to enrich
his mind with remembrances, which his previous
studies quahfied him to turn to excellent account.
An engagement in Paris, in 1828, established his
reputation with the most critical of audiences.
Mrginius, William Tell, Othello, and Hamlet,
with the wide range of character, passion, and
pathos wliich they involved, came as a sort of
revelation to audiences accustomed to tragedies
of a more limited scope, and transported them to
an enthusiasm which made them rank the young
Englishman with Le Kain and Talma. AVhen he
returned to play in Paris in 1844, this enthusiasm,
we remember, had very sensibly cooled. Either
the actor's power had diminished or the taste for
his methods had changed. His great ability and
accomplishment continued to be recognised. But
it was -talent' as distinct from 'genius,' of which
such critics as Janin, Theophile Gautier, Edouard
Thierry, and Dumas the Elder spoke.

The Diaries continue the story of Macready's
career from 182G, and tell, through many years,
a sad tale of bad temper, of angry jealousies, of
somewhat unmanly querulousness. The condition
of the London stages was declining from bad to
worse ; and, if we may judge from his annual

108 WILLIAM CHARLES MACREADY

balance-sheets, which no tradesman could have
kept with closer care, his popularity was on the
wane. An income of £3,285 5s. Od. in 1827 has
dropped in 1832 to €1,080 Is. 9d. Then come
such entries as this (October 2, 1832) : ' Newspapers,
middling, middling. They persecute me.' Or this
(November 10, 1832) :

' Lost much time and thought in useless, vain,
bad imaginations, referring to people indifferent
to me, not turning my eyes to the good I possess,
but lashing myself into a state of irritation which, if
it w^ere wise or just to despise anything in humanity,
should awaken my contempt. I^et me be wiser,
O God !'

He finds the key to his own disquietudes in
Johnson's remark on Dryden : ' He is always
angry at some past or afraid of some future censure.'
He reproaches himself with exhibiting ' odiosam
et inutilem morositatem ' ; and to what lengths this
must have carried him we see from his noting
(February 21, 1833), as something apparently
exceptional, * Rehearsed with civilify.' A poor
little boy, playing Albert to his William Tell, ' dis-
concerts and em^ages' him. He plays lago at
Manchester (March 10, 1833), 'pretty well, but was
certainly disconcerted, if not annoyed, by the share
of applause bestowed on Mr. Cooper as Othello,'
whom we remember as one of the most commonplace
of actors. He had no faith in his own reputation,
but lived in ceaseless apprehension ' of the danger

STRUGGLES WITH BAD TEINIPER 169

it runs from the appearance of every new aspirant '
(October 21, 1835). A few days before he writes:
' If I had not ties which bind me down to this
profession (and I could curse the hour it was
suggested to me), 1 would eat a crust, or eat
nothing rather than play in it.' Well might he
say of himself, ' V^anity and a diseased imagination
are the sources of my errors and my follies,' although
it was not quite so clear that they were what, in
the same sentence, he calls 'the evil result of a
neglected youth.' It is so pleasant to throw the
blame for our ' cunning bosom sins ' anywhere but
upon our own pride and passionate will. What
an amount of self-torture and humiliation does a
nature of this kind prepare for itself ! It not only
makes troubles, but magnifies those to which all
men are born. Intolerant, it begets intolerance,
and robs itself of the kindly sympathy that makes
half the pleasure of life. On March 30, 1835, he
notes :

' I begin to despair of obtaining that mastery
over myself which I owe to myself, to my children,
and to society. It is no excuse nor plea that I
suffer so keenly as I do from regret and shame at
my own intemperance. I feel the folly, the mad-
ness, the provoking extraA'agance of my behaviour,
treating men like slaves, and assuming a power
over them which is most unjustifiable and most
dangerous ; and yet contrition and stinging reflec-
tion seem to have no power in the punishment
they inflict of producing amendment.'

170 WILLIAM CHARLES MACREADY

It was more than mere jest Bulwer's saying of
him, as he sat at a pubhc dinner, that he looked
hke ' a baffled tyrant.'

This fretful state of mind was wrought to frenzy
in the beginning of 1836, by the studied slights put
upon him by his Drury Lane manager, Mr. Bunn,
a man whom he might be forgiven for regarding
with contempt. Macready held, however, a lucra-
tive permanent engagement at the theatre, to
which he was determined to hold fast. Bunn, on
the other hand, wanted to get rid of him, for the
twofold reason that his attraction had fallen off,
and that Malibran had been secured for the theatre,
and made the manager independent of the legitimate
drama. The parties were at covert warfare, each
trying to outflank the other. It was Bunn's tactics
to disgust Macready by professional slights, putting
him up for inferior parts, for important ones at too
short notice, and the like. At last the climax of
indignity was inflicted by announcing JNlacready
for 'the three first acts of "Richard III."'
The night came. He went through the part ' in
a sort of desperate way.' As he left the stage, he
had to pass the manager's room ; opening the door,
he rushed in upon the startled impresario, who was
seated at his writing-table, and, launching a highly
appropriate but by no means complimentary epithet
at him, with the pent-up force of a wrath that had
been nursed for months, ' he struck him a back-
handed slap across the face.' A vehement scuffle

THE ALFRED BUNN INCIDENT 171

ensued, in which Biinn, a much smaller and feebler
man, had necessarily the worst of it. JMacready
was too truly a gentleman not to feel that, in this
scene, he had, to use his own words, committed
a ' most indiscreet, most imprudent, most blamable
action.' His shame and contrition, as expressed in
his diary, are overwhelming. ' The fair fame of
a life has been sullied by a moment's want of self-
command. I can never, never during my life,
forgive myself,' are among their mildest expressions.
Happily for him, his character stood as high mth
the world as that of his adversary was low. There
were few to regi'et that Mr. Bunn had got a
thrashing ; many who were sure that, if not for
his offences to Macready, at least for other delin-
quencies, he had richly deserved one. All the
leading actors felt that Macready had been cruelly
provoked, and they rallied loyally round him.
Bunn brought his ' action of battery,' and his
injuries were ultimately assessed at £150. But in
the meantime Mr. Macready had been secured at
Cov^ent Garden, receiving £200 for an engagement
for ten nights ; and on his appearance there had
been greeted with tumultuous applause. At the
close of the play, ' Macbeth,' he was called for, and
spoke. Had anything been wanted to seal his
peace and popularity with the public, it was gi\'en
in his frank avowal, after a slight reference to the
provocations, personal and professional, which he
had received, that he had been 'betrayed, in a

172 WTLTJAM CIIART.ES MACREADY

nionient of unguarded passion, into an intemperate
and imprudent act, tor which I feel, and shall never
cease to feel, the deepest and most poignant self-
reproach and regret.'

Everything now conspired in Mr. Macready's
favour. The flagging attention of the public had
been reawakened. There was a company at Covent
Garden well qualified to do justice to his plays.
Charles Kemble was there ; and all the town was
crowding to see Helen Faucit, then a mere girl,
' unschooled, unpractised,' who a few months before
had captivated it by a freshness, an enthusiasm,
a truthfulness and grace, to which it had long been
unaccustomed."^' The interest in Shakespeare and
the higher drama had revived, and it was kept
alive during this and the following season by a
succession of excellent representations of the most
favourite plays. All this tended to the advance-
ment of Mr. Macready's reputation. His scholarly
attainments and general culture were also well
known, so that when, at the end of 1837, he under-
took the management of Covent Garden Theatre,

* ' It has been my good fortune to know Helen Faucit
even before she witched the world, in her early girlhood, in
" The Lady of Lyons," in " The Hunchback,"" and in those
Shakespearian characters in which from then till now she has
had no rival. We remember Mr. Macready's astonishment
that, " almost a child, she never had any country practice " ;
and we knew that, while leading in the plays we have named,
she was so much under age that she could not sign her
engagements' (from a paper by Mrs. S. C, Hall, 1875).

MANAGER OF COVENT GARDEN 173

with the avowed purpose of making it a home for
Shakespeare and the best dramatic art, the ablest
members of the company and of the profession
combined to lend him their hearty support,
accepting greatly reduced salaries, and more than
one agreeing to appear in secondary parts which
their recognised position in the profession would
justify them in declining.

'''o undertake the conduct of such a theatre,
loaded as it was with a too heavy rent, and
damaged by many years of wretched manage-
ment, was a venture of considerable risk. But
Mr. Macready had every inducement to make
it, quite apart from any wish he might have to
raise the standard of his art. Drury Lane was
closed to him, for it was still in Mr. Bunn's hands.
Only there and at Covent Garden could the
legitimate drama in those days be played, and, if
that theatre were shut up, he must have been
thrown on the provincial theatres, where, for some
time, his attraction had been waning. But by
taking it, he at once secured the sympathies of the
public, and was able to bring his powers, both as
actor and manager, before them with far more
effect than he could have hoped to do in any other
way. A bolder spirit would have staked much on
such a prospect without a shadow of misgiving.
Mr. Macready, as his diaries show, was neither
patient enough nor sanguine enough to fight the
first uphill fight of all such ventures with steady

174 WILLIAM CHARLES MACREADY

courage. He was too tearful of loss, too easily
daunted by temporary unsuccess. The least failure
disconcerts him, and he broods and trembles over
an adverse balance of a few hundreds, which would
scarcely cost a thought to a man really fitted for
the administration of a great theatre. So he goes
on torturing himself with apprehensions during his
first season of management, which added a needless
weight to the already too heavy burdens of one who
had to do the double duty of both manager and
actor.

He had, it is true, everything to cheer him in his
arduous task. The Queen was a constant visitor
at the theatre ; the public were warm in their
admiration ; and such men as Bulwer, Knowles,
Browning, and Talfourd enabled him to sustain an
interest in his management by a constant succes-
sion of new pieces. Stanfield painted for his first
pantomime an exquisite moving diorama of many
of the most picturesque scenes in Europe, and
returned his cheque for £300, refusing to accept
more than £150, which Mr. Macready records as
• one of the few noble instances of disinterested
friendly conduct he had met with in his life !' The
*Lady of Lyons,' produced on February 15, 1838,
replenished his then failing exchequer ; neither
would its author hear of being paid for it. He,
too, returns the manager's cheque for £210, in a
letter ' which is a recompense for much ill-requited
labour and unpitied sufi'ering.' This play, like many

PRODUCES NEW PLAYS 175

other successful plays, did not attract at first.
Macready, quickly dispirited, on the eighth or
ninth night talked of withdrawing it. The curtain
had just fallen on the exciting scene of the fourth
act. ' Could you see,' said Mr. Bartley, who was
playing Damas, ' what I see, as I stand at the back
of the stage, the interest and the emotion of the
people, you would not think of such a thing. It
is sure to be a great success.' Mr. JNIacready took
his advice, and the prediction was fully verified.
' King Lear,' with Shakespeare's text restored, was
produced early in the season with great effect,
Bulwer ministering incense of the most pungent
kind by telling Mr. Macready that his performance
of the old King was ' gigantic' ' Coriolanus,'
admirably acted and put upon the stage, soon
followed. The house on the first night was bad,
and Macready was in despair : ' I give up all hope,'
are his words. Among the old stock pieces, • The
Two Foscari,' and Talfourd's feeble ' Athenian
Captive ' came as novelties ; and, towards the end
of the season, Knowles's charming comedy of
' Women's Wit, or Love's Disguises,' charmingly
acted, was also brought out.

In direct pounds, shilhngs, and pence, Mr. Mac-
ready was a loser by the season. So, at least, we
understand him to put its results, where he says
(August 3, 1838) : ' I find I managed to lose, as
I first tliought, judging from actual decrease of
capital, and absence of profit by my labour, C2,.500,

176 WILLIAM CHARLES MACREADY

or, measuring my receipt by the previous year,
£ 1,850.' But against this was to be set the positive
increase of reputation and prestige, which secured
him engagements, both in London and elsewhere,
that, in the long-run, far more than compensated
this temporary loss. Moreover, the business of
theatrical management, like every business, takes
time to make, and practical men do not regard a
deficit in the outset as an actual loss. Mr. Mac-
ready, no doubt, in his less desponding moods, took
the same view, and having made a more favourable
arrangement with his landlords, he took Covent
Garden for another season, and opened a fresh
campaign, with renewed vigour, on September 24,
1838.

Aided by a company of unusual and varied
strength, he advanced still further the reputation
already won by his Shakespearian revivals. ' The
Tempest' and 'Henry V.' were produced witli a
completeness and a sense of the pictiu-esque hitherto
unknown. The public crowded to see them, and
proved that no truly well-directed effort to make
the theatre a place of high intellectual recreation
will be made in vain. Mr. Macready notes, on
June 20, 1839, as ' not a common event,' that ' The
Tempest ' was acted fifty-five nights, to an average
of £250 a night. But these performances were
distributed throughout the season.

To have run this or any other piece, however
successful, night after night, as we now see done,

BULWER'S RICHELIEU' 177

was a thing then undreamt of. A practice so fatal
to the actors as artists, not to speak of the mere
fatigue, is the result of the merely commercial
spirit on which theatres are now conducted. The
most successful plays were, in those days, alternated
with others. Thus the actors, if they had not com-
plete rest, had, at least, the rest of change. They
came fresh to their work, instead of falling into
mechanical routine. How much the public also
gained by this, it is needless to say. Play after
play was brought before them, in which the per-
formers were seen at their best. They learned to
understand good acting ; and this appreciation
reacted beneficially on the actors, who felt that
good and careful work was never thrown away.
Bulwer again came to the help of his friend by
writing 'Richelieu,' where he fitted him with a
part that gave scope for his best qualities — in-
tensity, strong powers of contrast, and a certain
grim humour. It proved one of the great successes
of the season. Every character was in able hands.
Elton, Diddear, Warde, Anderson, Vining, Phelps,
George Bennett, Howe, and Helen Faucit, all
names of strength, appeared in the cast. Never
was dramatist more fortunate than to be so inter-
preted. Xever had manager such a staff.

The season passed off brilliantly ; but Mr. Mac-
ready was dissatisfied with the money results. It
seems to have left him £l,200 in pocket — certainly
a most poor return for all the intellect and energy

12

178 WILLIAM CHARLES MACREADY

expended. Mr. Macready, at all events, thought
he could not afford to persevere in the course he
had so well begun, and he retired from the manage-
ment at the end of the season. Of the warmth of
the public he could not complain. On the last
night (July 16, 1839) he notes ;

' My reception was so great from a house crowded
in every part that I was shaken by it. . . . The
curtain fell amidst the loudest applauses, and when
I had changed my dress I went before the curtain,
and, amidst shoutings and wavings of hats and
handkerchiefs by the whole audience standing up,
the stage was literally covered with wreaths, bou-
quets, and branches of laurel. . . . The cheering
was renewed, as I bowed and left the stage ; and
as I passed through the lane which the actors and
people, crowding behind, made for me, they cheered
me also. Forster came into my room, and was
much affected ; [W. J.] Fox was much shaken ;
Dickens, Maclise, Stanfield, T. Cooke, Blanchard,
Lord Nugent (who had not been in the theatre),
Bulwer, Hockley of Guildford, Browning, Serle,
Wilmot, came into my room ; most of them asked
for memorials from the baskets and heaps of flowers,
chaplets, and laurels that were strewn upon the
floor.'

The same enthusiasm was shown at a public
dinner, four days later, given to him at the Free-
masons' Tavern, and presided over by the Duke of
Sussex. When he rose to speak, he says : ' I never
vidtnessed such a scene, such wild enthusiasm, on
any former occasion.' In the course of his speech
he stated that his hope and intention had been —

IN HAYMARKET THEATRE 179

' to hav e left in our theatre the complete series of
Shakespeare's acting-plays, his text purified from
the gross interpolations that disfigure it and distort
his characters ; and the system of re-arrangement so
perfected throughout them, that our stage would
have presented, as it ought, one of the best illus-
trated editions of the poet's works. But,' he added,
' my poverty, and not my will, has compelled me
to desist from the attempt.'

Much good had, however, been done, and the truth
had been brought home to many minds that, as
Shakespeare wrote for the stage, and not for the
closet, his plays, to be thoroughly felt and under-
stood, must be acted, not read.

All that Mr. Macready had lost at Covent
Garden he soon retrieved by the increased value
of his engagements elsewhere. Mr. Webster secured
him for the Haymarket Theatre upon most liberal
terms, engaging at the same time Miss Helen
Faucit and several other members of the Covent
Ciarden Company, who thus kept alive the interest
in the higher drama which they had helped to
create. 15ulwer's ' Sea Captain ' and ' Money,'
Talfourd's ' Glencoe,' Troughton's ' Nina Sforza,'
and other plays of mark, in addition to many of
the older plays, were all produced by Mr. Webster
with a finish no less complete — allowing for the
size of the theatre — than had distinguished the
recent performances at Covent Garden. Mr.
Macready continued at the Haymarket, with slight
interruptions, down to the end of 1841. \Vhile

12—2

180 WILLIAM CHARLES MACREADY

there thoughts of resuming the managerial sceptre
revived in his mind. ' The stage,' he notes on
January 27, 1841, 'seems to want me. There is
no tlieatre, but that to a man with a family is no
argument ; there is no theatre for me, and that is
an overwhelming plea. Then much may be done
of good in all ways.' Soon after Drury Lane
passed out of Mr. Bunn's hands, and the temptation
of reigning in his stead became irresistible. Mr.
Macready took the theatre, and opened his season
with ' The Merchant of Venice,' on December 27,
1841, having again drawn round him a most
powerful company.

His return to management was hailed with
sincere pleasure by every lover of the drama.
' Acis and Galatea,' produced on February 5, was
his first great success. Those who remember what
Stanfield did for the one scene of the piece, and the
fine singing of Miss Romer, Miss Horton, Mr
Allen, and Mr. Phillips, will quite concur with Mr.
Macready when he says of the performance, ' that
he had never seen anything of the kind so perfectly
beautiful.' Gerald Griffin's fine play of ' Gisippus,'
in which, we remember, Mr. Anderson produced
a very powerfiil effect in one remarkable scene, was
produced on February 23 following. It had only
a succes d'estime. Darley's ' Plighted Troth,' pro-
duced on April 20, fi*om which Mr. Macready to
the last anticipated a brilliant success, proved
' a most unhappy failure.' The play was full of

MANAGER OF DRURY LANE 181

fine things. So, too, was William Smith's ' Athel-
wold,' produced on May 18 ; but not even the fine
acting and more than one powerful scene could
carry it beyond a second performance. ' Marino
FaUero ' followed on IMay 20, and two nights after-
wards the season closed.

During this season, as well as during that which
followed, success was chiefly assured, either by the
admirable style in which Shakespeare's best known
plays were presented, or by plays of already estab-
lished reputation. ' As You Like it,' ' King John,'
' Othello,' ' Macbeth,' ' Much Ado About Nothing,'
' C^mbeline,' ' Romeo and Juliet,' ' Hamlet,' ' The
Winter's Tale,' 'Julius Caesar,' 'Henry IV.,' and
' Catherine and Petruchio,' represented Shakespeare.
* She Stoops to Conquer,' ' The School for Scandal,'
'The Rivals,' 'The Way to Keep Him,' 'The
Provoked Husband,' 'The Jealous Wife,' 'The
Stranger,' ' The Road to Ruin,' ' Jane Shore,'
' Virginius,' ' A\''erner,' ' The Lady ot Lyons,'
' Marino Faliero,' and ' Acis and Galatea,' were
also given, besides a number of minor pieces.
Milton's ' Comus ' was presented in a way never
to be forgotten ; while among the new pieces
of exceptional merit were Marston's ' Patrician's
Daughter,' Browning's ' Blot on the Scutcheon,'
Knowles's ' Secretary,' Planche's delightful Easter
piece, ' Fortunio,' and the opera of ' Sapplio.' It is
a splendid list, and tlie memory of the playgoer of
those days naturally kindles as he reads it. In

182 WILLIAM CHARLES MACREADY

these diaries, however, nothing will strike him as so
noteworthy as Mr. Macready's total silence as to
those by whose co-operation alone he was able to
produce this magnificent series of performances.
Of himself, and how he acted, and was called for,
etc., we hear more than enough ; but no word
appears of gratitude or recognition for loyal service
rendered, and for powers of a high class applied by
others with sincere artistic devotion, as they most
certainly were.

In the midst of success apparently unclouded,
and when it seemed as if a theatre were now likely
to be established worthy of England and its drama,
Mr. Macready suddenly threw up the reins, upon
some difference with the proprietors of the theatre
about terms. All at once, upon a few days' notice,
and without explanation of any kind, his fine com-
pany found themselves thrown all adrift, and their
hopes of seeing one great national theatre annihi-
lated. The blow fell heavily upon them, and they
had not even the consolation of being called to
mind by their leader when he was receiving what
he describes as the ' mad acclaim ' of the public on
the last night of his management. Again the
honours of a public dinner, with the Duke of
Cambridge in the chair, and the presentation of a
magnificent piece of plate, were accorded to the
retiring manager. His speech on the occasion is
given in his Memoirs, but not even in it does he
say one word about the very remarkable body

GOES TO AMERICA 183

of performers who had so ably seconded his
efforts. His own sensitiveness to ingratitude, real
or imagined, had not taught JVlr. INIacready to
avoid the sin in his own person. Time does its
work of oblivion quickly, and the readers of
dramatic history should be reminded that there
were actors and actresses in Mr. JNIacready's com-
panies, to whose assistance very much of the great
reputation of his management was due, for from
his published diaries they will get no hint of the
fact. Where his own effects are marred by the
incompetency of others, whether in this country or
in America, Mr. Macready is always ready to note
the fact with almost peevish soreness ; but in no
one instance does he mention any man or woman
as having helped him in bringing out the full
purpose of the author, or in heightening the effect
of his own scenes.

In the autumn of this year he went to America,
with the glories of his Drury Lane management
fresh upon him. They brought him a Hberal
return for all his pains. After a year spent in
the States he came home richer by £5,500 than
he had gone there — no bad return for what it
pleases him to call (April 22, 1844) 'the worst
exercise of a man's intellect.' On arriving in
Europe at the end of 1844, he played for a few
nights in Paris, not greatly, it would appear, to his
own satisfaction, and then entered upon a scries of
engagements in London and the provinces, which

184 WILLIAM CHARLES MACREADY

occupied him, with varying success, till his return
to America in the end of 1848. This visit was,
upon the whole, an unlucky one. It brought him
into contact with some of the worst features of the
' rowdyism ' by which the great Republic was at
tliat time afflicted. Mr. Forrest, a native and
favourite actor, in resentment at some offence
given him by Mr. Macready, or imagined, had
apparently determined to make the land of freedom
too hot to hold the English tragedian. When
Mr. Macready, soon after his arrival, appeared in
Philadelphia, hissing and catcalls greeted his entry
as Macbeth. ' I went through the part,' he writes,
' cheerily and defyingly, pointing at the scoundrels
such passages as "I dare do all," ' etc. No wonder
that the discharge at the usurper, first of a copper
cent and then of a rotten egg, followed this very
imdignified style of sending home his points. The
better part of the audience supported Mr. Macready,
and no further outbreak occurred. But when he
returned to New York a few months afterwards, the
Forrest movement assumed a more serious shape.
The first night he appeared, copper cents, eggs,
apples, a peck of potatoes, lemons, pieces of wood,
a bottle of asafoetida, were thrown upon the stage.
At last the missiles grew even more miscellaneous
and dangerous. Chairs were throw^n from the
gallery on the stage, and the play had to be brought
to a premature close. Two days afterwards another
attempt at performance was made. But this time

THE FORREST RIOT 185

matters were more serious. Inside the theatre
comparative quiet was maintained, but outside
a complete bombardment of stones and missiles
was carried on. Through all this riot Mr. JNlacready
persevered, ' acting his very best,' as he says, ' and
exciting the audience to a sympathy even with the
glowing words of fiction, while dreadful deeds of
real crime and outrage were roaring at intervals in
our ears, and rising to madness all round us. The
death of Macbeth was loudly cheered.' But while
he was changing his dress he was startled by volley
on volley of musketry. The soldiers had been sent
for, and were firing into the mob. Eighteen were
killed and many wounded. JNlacready was with
difficulty got away from New York to Boston,
where he embarked for England on May 23, 1849,
effectually cured of his dream of settling hi America
— effectually cured, too, of his faith in the perfections
of a Republic.

On his return home he commenced a series
of farewell engagements. Happily for himself,
he seems at this period to have viewed his own
performances with something more than com-
placency. It was scarcely judicious to let the world
see the terms of higli commendation with which he
mentions his own lago, Brutus, Lear, Hamlet,
etc. But notwithstanding all this, he records
(February 26, 18.51) that ' not one feeling of regi'et
is intermingled with his satisfaction at bidding
adieu to the occupation of his life.' That same

18G WILLIAM CHARLES ]\LVCREADY

evening saw him for the last time upon the stage.
The play was ' Macbeth,' and the stage that of
Drury I^ane. ' 1 acted Macbeth,' he says, ' with a
reality, a vigour, a truth, a dignity, that I never
before threw into the delineation of this favourite
character.' The audience were in no critical mood ;
they had come to do honour to one to wliom they
owed much pure pleasure from an art which they,
at least, did not despise, and they thought of little
else. Such were the greeting and farewell they
gave him, that he says, ' No actor has ever received
such testimony of respect and regard in this
country.'* His triumph did not end here. Four
days afterwards a public dinner, at which six

* Here Mr. Macready's memory must have deceived him.
He was in London when John Kemble left the stage, and
must have known well the extraordinary greeting and
farewell the pubHc gave him. At his farewell performance
Ludwig Tieck was present, and describes the scene in his
' Dramaturgische Bliitter.'' ' The loudest burst of applause,'
he wiites, ' I have ever heard, even in Italy, was but feeble
compared to the indescribable din which, after the curtain
fell, arose on every side. There were thousands present,
packed closely together, and the huge area of the house was
changed into one vast machine, which produced a super-
natural clangour and jubilation, men and women shouting,
clapping, smiting the sides of the boxes, might and main,
with fans and sticks.' The papers of the day tell the same
story. But Kemble was not allowed to retire for his rest to
Lausanne, where he died, till he had received the homage of a
gi*eat banquet (June 27, 1817), presided over l)y Lord Holland,
at which many of the most eminent men of the day were

PUBLIC DINNER 187

hundred guests were assembled, was given to him.
His constant friend, Sir E. L. Bulwer, presided,
and around him were gathered many of the most
distinguished men of the day. The chairman pro-
nounced a brilliant panegyric, and the speaking
generally was good. One speech appeared in the
papers, and is reprinted with the ' Reminiscences,'
which we well remember was not spoken. It had
been prepared by the Chevalier Bunsen, and was
by far the ablest of them all ; but his turn to speak

present, and for which Campbell wrote his fine address, in
which he says of the guest of the evening that —

' His was the spell o'er hearts.
Which only acting lends :
The youngest of the sister arts,
Where all their beauty blends."'

Poetry, he goes on to say, fails often to find the full and
fitting tone for its thoughts ; and painting,

' Mute and motionless,

Steals hut a glance of time ;
Hut, by the mighty actor brought,

Illusion"'s wedded triumphs come —
Verse ceases to be airy thought,

And sculpture to be dumb "■ —

lines of which Mr. Macready, being an actor, must have been
proud as an exquisite tribute to the actor's art. Nor was
this all, for on the same occ<asion was presented to Mr. Kemble
a vase upon a silver tripod, designed by Flaxman and executed
by Storr, with two classical groups in low relief. This master-
piece ill design and woikmanship, which had passed into the
hands of Sir Henry Irving, wtv> sold at Christie and Manson's
on December 16, 1905.

188 WILLIAM CHARLES JNJACREADY

came so late in the programme that Bunsen merely
substituted for it a very few words.

The curtain could not have fallen upon a more
splendid close to an honourable career. Surely all
these honours, these unreserved gratulations, might
have made Mr. Macready forget his old apprehen-
sions that he was looked down upon because he
was an actor. But no, the same feeling remained,
though with it comes the absurd conviction that,
because he is an actor no longer, he ' can now look
his fellow-men, whatever their station, in the face,
and assert his equality' (Diary, March 19, 1851).
He quite forgets that, had he not been an actor,
he M^ould have been nobody. The applause, the
' salutations in the market-place,' so precious to
a man of his temperament, would never have been
his. The grandson of the Dublin upholsterer
would have had no ' Reminiscences ' to write, no
name to be proud of^ or to be carried down to
generations beyond his own.

Mr. Macready survived his retirement from the
stage more than twenty-two years, which he spent
first at Sherborne and afterwards at Cheltenham,
where he died on April 27, 1873. It was his fate
to see many of his ' dear ones laid in earth.' His
wife and most of his children preceded him to
the grave. He married most happily, a second
time, in 1860. Removed from the stage and its
jealousies, all his fine qualities had freer scope, and
we think now with pleasure of his venerable and

RETIREMENT AND DEATH 189

noble head, as we saw it last in 1871, and of the
sweet smile of his beautiful mouth, which spoke of
the calm wisdom of a gentle and thoughtful old
asre. We have reason to know, from his letters
in our possession, that he looked back witii yearn-
ing fondness to the studies and pursuits which had
made him famous. The fretful jealousies, the
passionate wilfulness of the old times, seemed to
have faded into the dim past, and no longer marred
the memory of kindness shown, and loyal service
rendered to him. He had done much good work
in the sphere which Providence had assigned him,
and we believe had learned to know that it was not
for him to repine, if ' the Divinity that shapes our
ends ' had so shaped liis that his work in life was to
be accomplished upon the stage.

Personal Note.

[My first meeting with Mr. Macready was remark-
able. Early in the spring of 184G I had occasion
to make a professional visit to Torquay. My
engagements in I^ondon were so numerous and
urgent that, leaving London on Saturday, I was
bound to be back for consultations by Monday
morning. I'he Great Western Railway then went
no further than Exeter. There was a good stage-
coach to Torquay on Saturday afternoon, but 1
found on inquiry that, in order to return next day,
one must post. When the waiter told me this, as I
lunched at the Exeter Hotel, he added : ' There is

190 WILLIAM CHARLES MACREADY

a gentleman in the next room, who has to be in
London early on Monday, and has asked me
how this has to be managed,' Upon this, handing
the waiter my card, I asked him to take it to
the gentleman in question, and say that I should be
happy to arrange with him to post from Torquay
to Exeter next day. Very quickly a tall, handsome
man came into the room. He told me he was
taking his two boys to school at Torquay, but must
get back to London by next night. It was soon
settled between us, that he should call at my hotel
at eight o'clock next morning, and travel with
me in the chaise which I should ha\ e ready for our
journey. Punctually at eight he came, and we
started. It was a perfect spring morning. Sun-
shine and the beauty of the country, with a wealth
of wild flowers dappling the banks of the roads
through which we passed, animated our spirits — at
least, I know that our conversation never flagged,
and that I thought myself in great good luck to
ha^e a companion with whom I found myself
in complete sympathy on the many varied subjects
— especially in literature and art — which sprang up
for discussion. We had got over more than half
the journey, when my companion quoted a line from
either ' Coriolanus ' or ' Julius Caesar ' — I cannot
remember which. ' You are an actor,' was my
instant thought, for such perfect delivery of the
line, I felt, would never be found except in one
accustomed to the stage. What actor ? I next

PERSONAL NOTE 191

asked myself. 'Iliere was but one with whom
I could identify such elocution, and him I had seen
in ' Richelieu ' only two nights before, and in ' Lear '
on the previous Wednesday. What was to be
done ? My companion had not given me his card
nor mentioned his name, imagining, no doubt, that
I must have known one who was so familiar to the
public eye. I was quite at a loss what to do,
because to say I had not knoMTi him imphed a
rebuke for his not having either given me his card
in return for mine or told me his name. And
to say that I found him out by his delivery of
a line of Shakespeare was not hkely to be
agreeable to a man who, I knew, was by no means
proud of his profession. After continuing the
conversation awhile, 1 took an opportunity to ask
' If I had not the pleasure of having Mr. Macready
as my fellow-traveller ?' He made some courteous
reply, and then our talk went on as before. 1
remember tlie enthusiasm with which he spoke
of Hood's ' Song of the Shirt ' and ' Bridge of
Sighs,' which had recently appeared, and a long
discussion on Sir Heniy Taylor's ' Philip van
Artevelde,' also recently published, for which I
shared his admiration. This came back vividly to
my mind when that play was produced by him a
few years after at the Princess Theatre, and failed,
as it could not fail to do, crushed by the criticism
that it was ' Macready in five acts,' as in truth it was.
To London we jounieyed together, and I had

192 WILLIAM CHARLES MACREADY

a most agreeable recollection of tlic hours of pleasant
talk with the oreat tragedian — talk I'ull on his part
of knowledge and of anecdote — who reminded me
in nothing of the actor save by his beautifully
articulated speech, less rarely to be met with then
than it is, alas ! now. A few days afterwards an
invitation to dinner came from Mr. Macready,
which, although then only on a brief visit to
London, I was able to accept. At his table were
several distinguished men of letters, to meet whom
was a great satisfaction to my youthful enthusiasm.
It was many years before we met again, but the
acquaintance then resumed was kept up to the last.
He had a beautiful old age, of which a most
pleasant picture is given in the late Lady Pollock's
' Macready as T Knew Him,' I^ondon, 1884.]

Qxavhel

Sm^J^'WaikerPA .?'

PiACHEL

It is now rather more than forty long years since
all that was mortal of Rachel was laid to rest in
the Jewish cemetery at Pere la Chaise. There are
not many living who saw her in the days of her
power, or who remember the deep regi'et that her
decline and early death created among her brother
and sister artistes, and the sympathetic pity that
followed her to her last resting-place. The streets
through which the funeral procession passed were
thronged ; and around her grave on that bleak,
dark, showery January day (January 11, 1858)
were gathered all the Parisian men and women
of distinction in her own art. There, too, might
be seen all the leaders in literature and the fine
arts, whom Paris held most in honour, come to
pay the last sad homage to one whose genius had
often tlirilled their hearts and stirred their imagina-
tions as no other actress of her time liad done.
How many blanks in that brilliant array can even
now be counted ! Of these, Rachel's great teacher,
Samson, to whom slie owed so much, INIonrose, the
elder Dumas, V^illcmain, Scribe, Saintc Hcuve,

VJii r.i

194 RACTIEI.

Alfred de Vigny, Morimee, Jules Janin, Halevy,
Thcophile Gautier, Baron Taylor, Emile de
Girardin, are but a few of the most conspicuous.
As one reads the record, the old, old question
starts up, ' A^^here are they all, the old familiar
faces V Fading fast away, like the fame of her
whom they had met to mourn, into that dim
twilight of memory, which for most of them will
soon deepen into unbroken night.

' Pauvre femme ! Ah, la pauvre femme !' were
the words that broke again and again from the old
but ever-young Dejazet, as she tried in vain to
make her way through the dense crowd in the
cemetery to throw a huge bouquet of violets into
the grave. They are words which were often used
in Rachel's life by those who knew its sad story.
They are the words that rise naturally to our lips
as we lay down the volume published, in 1859, by
M. Georges d'Heylli, ' Rachel d'apres sa Corre-
spondance,' in which it has been told in fuller
detail and with a kindlier spirit, than in any of the
numerous biographies by which it was preceded.

What a strange, sad story it is ! The years of
childhood and girlhood spent in poverty, in squalor,
and privation, passing suddenly into a blaze of
European fame — the homage of the leaders of
society and of thought laid at the feet of one
whom they looked upon as ' a thing inspired ' —
wealth pouring in profusion into her lap — the
passionate aspiration of the young spirit after

A STRANGE, SAD STORY 195

excellence in her art, and the triumphs there,
which were more to her than either wealth or the
plaudits of the theatre. Then the melancholy
reverse of the picture ! A life wherein that which
makes the main charm and glory of womanhood is
sought for in vain — the practice of her noble art,
continued not from delight in its exercise, or with
purpose to raise and to instruct, degenerating into
a mere mechanical pursuit, swiftly avenged by the
decline of that power which had once enabled her
to move men's hearts to their inmost depths, and
by the break - up of her constitution, taxed as it
was beyond endurance in efforts to make as much
money as possible in the shortest possible time.
Then disease — acute bodily suffering — anguish in
the retrospect of a mistaken life, and in forebodings
of the eclipse of a fame which was the very breath
of her nostrils, yet which she knew too well she
had not laboured honourably to maintain — death
drawing nearer and nearer, with none of the
consolations either in looking backward or forward
that rob it of its bitterness, and relentlessly closing
its icy hand upon her heart, while that heart still
yearned after the scene of her former glories, and
felt some stirrings of tlie old power which had won
them. ^\ sad life indeed, and anything but noble.
It is not, however, without instruction, either for
ailist or critic ; for it brings strongly home the too
often forgotten truth, that to rise to tlie level of
great art, and to keep there, the inner life and the

1 ,'}— 2

196 RACHEL

habits of the artist must be worthy, pure, and
noble.

Let us try, with the lielp of M. d'Heylh's
volume, and some others which bear upon the
subject, to present some of its leading features.

In an aubcrgc called the Soleil d'Or, in the small
village of Mumf, near Aarau in Switzerland, Eliza-
beth Felix, the Rachel of the French stage, first
saw the light on February 28, 1820. Thither her
mother had come a few days before, unaccompanied
by her husband, Jacob Felix, a Jewish travelling
pedlar, with whom she had for some time been
moving about in Germany and Switzerland. The
kindness of some of the Israelites of the village
helped her over her time of trouble ; and a few
days afterwards she left the place, taking with her
the baby who, she little dreamed, was to bring
back Racine, Corneille, and Voltaire to the French
stage. Years passed in wandering up and down
with lier parents, who plied their vocation of
pedlars with indifferent success, were not favour-
able either to the education or to the health of
their gifted child, or of their other children — for
they had several — and probably laid the seeds of
that delicacy of chest which ultimately proved
fatal to Rachel. This is all the more probable, if
we remember that at Lyons, where her parents
went to reside in 1830, and subsequently in Paris,
to which they removed in 1832, her elder sister
Sophie (afterwards known on the stage as Sarah

SINGS IN THE STREETS 197

Felix) and herself used to eke out the scanty
means of the household by selling oranges, and
by singing at the cafes, upon the chance of earning
a few sous from the visitors. Sarah, a bright,
healthy blonde, found compensation for the hard-
ship of this life in the coarse admiration which her
good looks excited. Rachel, pale and plain, had
no such consolation, and to her sensitive nature the
occupation was ftill of suffering. This, which no
doubt made itself felt in her looks, and the intelli-
gence which must at all times have shown itself in
her eyes, attracted the notice of one who had even
then given promise of a great future, as the sisters
were singing in the Place Royale, and he dropped
a five-franc piece into the younger girl's hand.
' That is Victor Hugo !' said a voice within her
hearing ; and when Rachel had become famous,
and a friend of the great poet's, she was not
ashamed to relate the incident to her friends.

It was while plying this vocation that the sisters
attracted the notice of M. Etienne Choron, a
musician who devoted himself to the training of
pupils for the musical profession. Rachel's voice
was a contralto, but Choron soon found that the
organ was of a quality too thin and metallic to give
hopes of turning it to any good account. In the
course of her training, however, the young girl had
shown qualities as a declaimer, which induced him
to recommend her to tlie notice of M. St. Aulaire,
of the (lonu'dic Francaise, wlio, althougli an indil-

198 RACHEL

ferent actor himself, was esteemed an admirable
instructor in declamation and the technical business
of the stage.

Throiigli very marked disadvantages of feature
and person, he recognised the latent genius of the
artist. Her voice, in later years most musical and
full of charm, was then harsh and somewhat vulgar
in accent ; her figure, afterwards remarkable for
grace, was stunted and meagre, her face pale and
unattractive. She thought that her vocation lay in
comedy, and laughed at those who told her that
in tragedy she was to look for her future success.
Even at the age of fifteen she had shown something
of the power by which she was soon afterwards
to thrill her audiences with pity and terror. If we
may judge from the description of one who saw her
at St. Aulaire's establishment in November, 1834,
something of the grave, sweet nature which dis-
tinguished her bearing when she first appeared in
society a few years afterwards must then have been
apparent. ' Everything about the child,' he says,
'was of the cheapest and plainest description, but
the ensemble conveyed an idea of neatness and even
precision. With those older than herself little
Rachel was punctiliously polite ; grave and simple
beyond her years, every feature of the long, childish
face bore the impress of modesty and even dignity,
with which education had little to do.'

Education had indeed done little for her. What
was she likely to learn in the shape of culture in

STUDIES UNDER M. ST. AULAIRE 199

the nomadic life and squalid home of her parents ?
She could read, but her literary knowledge was
Umited to portions of the plays of Corneille, Racine,
and Moliere, which were given her to study. She
could write, too, but her spelling then and for years
afterwards was as bad as it could well be, and her
language showed complete ignorance of the simplest
grammatical rules.

Under M. St. Aulaire, however, she made rapid
progi-ess. She had a quick and retentive memory,
and was soon grounded in all the old tragedies and
comedies of repute. Her master was in the habit
of exercising his pupils upon the stage of an obscure
bourgeois theatre, called the 'Theatre MoUere,'
in the Rue St. Martin, where performances were
given upon Sundays. It was here, as M. Samson
mentions in his delightful Memoirs,* that he first
saw the young girl, wliose subsequent success was
in a great measure due to his instructions.

' She had been,' he writes, ' for some time making
attempts in tragedy at the theatre of M. St. Aulaire,
who, althougli a Societaire of the Comedie Fran9aise,
only occupied a modest place there. He made his
pupils perform, and gave them tickets, wliicli they
undertook to dispose of for money. This was the
way he made his income. The performances in
whicli Rachel took part were the most lucrative.
She was frequently brouglit before the inliabitants
of tliis part of Paris, and she was applauded and

* ♦ Memoires de Samson de la C.'omedie Fran(,"aise,"' Paris.
1882.

200 RACHEL

made much of by this homely pubhc ; and her
renown had even spread beyond the narrow sphere
Avhere slie paved the way for more serious successes.
Some of my pupils, struck by her abilities, spoke of
her to me, and inspired me with the desire to judge
of her for myself. I went to hear her one day that
she played in the " Don Sanche " of Corneille. She
astonished me, I admit, in the character of Isabella,
Queen of Castille. I was struck by the tragic
feeling which she showed. The sacred fire burned
in this young and feeble breast. She was then very
little, and yet, having a Queen to represent, she
dwarfed by her grand manner the actors who
surrounded her. These were tall young men
unaccustomed to the stage, and her ease of deport-
ment threw their awkwardness into stronger relief.
Although forced by her lowness of stature to raise
her head to speak to them, the young artist seemed
to address them as from above. Still there were
here and there, if I may use the phrase, lacuncE
of intelligence; the character was not perfectly
understood — of this there could be no doubt-
but all through one felt the presence of the tragic
accent ; the special gift was manifest at every point,
and one already saw by anticipation the great
theatrical future of this wonderful child. Between
the pieces I went upon the stage to congratulate her.
By this time she had donned a man's dress for And-
rieux's comedy, " Le Manteau," which was to follow.
As I arrived she was playing at some kind of game,
in which it was necessary to hop on one foot, and it
was in this attitude that I surprised the ex-Queen
of Spain. She listened to my compliments with one
leg in the air, thanked me very gracefully, and
resumed her game.'

A talent of so much promise was sure to attract

AT THE CONSERVATOIRE 201

the attention of those whose business it was to find
recruits for the great national theatre. M. Vedel,
the treasurer, and subsequently the director, of
the Comedie Franqaise, saw her play Andromaque
at the same little theatre, and was so deeply
impressed by a distinction of manner which
triumphed over e\'ery disadvantage of an un-
developed figure and shabby costume, as well as
by the correctness and purity of her elocution, that
he procured for her an admission into the Con-
servatoire. She was then only fifteen years and
a half old, but when she appeared before the Areo-
pagus of that gi'eat school — Cherubini, d'Henneville,
JNIichelot, Samson, and Provost — she excited their
warmest admiration, producing upon them, says
M. Samson, ' the same happy impression which she
had been in tlie habit of producing upon less
competent hearers.' Samson recorded on the books
of the school his opinion of her in the words :
' Physique grele, mais une admirable organisation
theatrale.'

Owing apparently to a slight being shown her by
the directors of the Conservatoire in casting her for
the small part of Flipote, the servant, at a repre-
sentation of ' Tartuffe ' by the pupils of the
establishment, Rachel retired from this fine school
of acting in disgust after a four months' experience.
But, through the intervention of her old master,
St. Aulaire, she was soon afterwards engaged upon
liberal terms by M. Poirson, manager of the

202 RACHEL

Gymnase.'*^ Here she made her d^biit on April 4,
1837, in a new drama, called 'La Vendeenne,' by
Paul Duport.

The piece, according to Jules Janin, ' ephemeral
and slight, of the kind that are acted a few nights
and then sink into oblivion,' held the stage chiefly
through the interest created by the young debutante.
It was acted sixty times, but did not pay. It
contained one fine scene, an interview between the
Empress Josephine and the young Vendean peasant
girl, who has made her way to Paris on foot,
like Jeanie Deans in ' The Heart of Midlothian,'
to plead for her father's life. Falling at Josephine's
feet, she tells her of a vision which inspired her
to undertake the task :

' Et du doigt semble elle indiquer
Une Ville inconnue, immense —
Un seul mot rompit la silence ;
" Paris I" et puis elle ajouta,
Comme en reponse a ma priere :
Vas y seule, a pied — car c'est la,
Que tu pourras sauver ton pere.'t

* It was now that Rachel discarded her first name, Eliza-
beth, to be henceforth known by her second, Rachel.

t Years afterwards, when Rachel was lying on a couch in
her rooms in the Chaussee d'Antin, surrounded by guests,
' all depressed,' says Jules Janin, ' by the sadness of the young
actress, over whom the shadow of death had even then fallen,
suddenly with her deep sonorous voice she began chanting
these lines, and made them thrill by the expression she gave
to the words :

i

HER DEMONIACAL POWER 203

In the passionate earnestness with which these hnes
were chanted the same note was struck which was
afterwards to be heard in its full power in Phedre,
Camille, and Hermione. ' That little Jewish girl,'
Edwin Forrest, the American actor, said to JNI.
Poirson, ' that little bag of bones, with the marble
face and the flaming eyes — there is demoniacal
power in her. If she li\'e, and do not burn out
too soon, she will become something wonderful.'
' This child of fifteen,' wrote Jules Janin, ' acts with
much feeling, enthusiasm, and intelligence, but with
very little skill. She intuitively understands the
part assigned to her. There is no straining for
effect, no exaggeration, no cries, no studied
attitudes, and, above all, no coquetry ; on the
contrary, she is extremely quiet and dignified.
The child's voice is rough and hoarse, like the voice
of a child ; her hands are red, like a child's hands ;
her foot, like her hand, is scarcely formed ; she
is not pretty, but pleasing — in a word, there is
a great futiu-e in store for this young genius ; and
she receives a tribute of tears, emotion, and interest,
from the as yet small audience that comes to do her
honour.'

Every theatre has its peculiar audience, and the
audience of the Gymnase cared more for liglit

Une Ville inconnue, immense.
Paris! ....

Vas y seule, a pied — car c'est la,
Que tu pouiras sauver ton pere."'

204 RACHEL

comedy than for strong emotion. To bring them
back to their favourite haunt, Rachel undertook
the part of Suzette in the ' Mariage de Raison.'
For this she wanted the necessary Hghtness and
freedom of touch, and suffered under the dis-
advantage of being contrasted with Leontine Fay,
whose personal charms and flexible grace of style
were already identified with the part. Rachel's
appearances at the Gymnase showed that a theatre
devoted to drama of everyday life was not suited
to the severe and impassioned tone, and the large
style, in which her genius found its natural vent.
Accordingly, her manager, whose faith in her re-
mained unshaken, recommended her to resume her
studies for the higher drama, with a view to appear-
ing upon the stage of the Theatre Fran9ais. Then
it was, says M. Samson ('Memoires,' p. 306), 'that
I again saw her, and in my own house, to which
she had come once before to bid me good-bye ' —
on her hasty withdrawal, no doubt, from the Con-
servatoire. ' I had preserved,' continues M. Samson,
' a recollection of her full of regrets, and was very
glad to see her again. I became her professor, and
eight months afterwards she made her debut at the
Theatre Fran^ais in the part of Camille in ' Les
Horaces.'

M. Samson was the means of securing her an
engagement at his theatre so early as February,
1838, but she did not actually appear till June 12.
In his journal he records (February C, 1838) that,

PUPIL OF M. SAJMSON 205

as she was ' ignorant in the extreme, owing to the
poverty of her parents,' he told her father to put
her into the hands of Madame Bronzet, the teacher
of his own children, for tuition in grammar and
history. That lady offered to undertake her in-
struction for twenty francs a month, and M. Sam-
son continued, as before, to give his own lessons
gratis. Of the value of these some estimate may
be formed from the fact that, among the great
number of distinguished pupils whom he guided to
a successful career, were such artists as IVIesdames
Plessy, Allan, Favart, INIadeleine and Augustine
Brohan, Rose Cheri, Judith, and Jouassain.

Samson was not the man to allow his pupil to
venture on the stage of tlie great theatre of the
Rue Richelieu until he was assured that she would
prove herself worthy of its traditions and an honour
to her instructor. Besides, she had not only to
bear the always heavy ordeal of the candidate
before an exacting audience for the honours won
and worn by the favourites of the past, but also to
win back their attention to the tragedies of Racine
and Corneille, which had been thrown for some
time into the shade by Victor Hugo and the other
writers of the Romantic School. The art of in-
terpreting the great works of the classical drama
had for some years fallen into disuse, and they
were voted slow by those wlio had never seen
their beauties developed by the histrionic genius
to which, more than any other, dramatic work of

20G RACHEL

the highest order must always be, in a great
measure, indebted for success. Let us hear what
M. Samson says on this point :

' Tahiia, dying in 1826, seemed to have carried
classic tragedy away with him. Old gentlemen
mourned at this ; but their regrets were not shared
by the new generation, whose wish was that ruin
should overwhelm what they regarded as having
had its day. At the moment when the crash of
political storms was making itself heard, a literary
revolution was carried out. What have been called
" the battles of Hernani " set all minds on fire, and
the stage had also its 1830. Corneille, Racine, and
Voltaire were only played at long intervals, and to
empty houses ; and these isolated representations
only served to show more clearly the public in-
difference for works of this class, which, after two
centuries of triumph and glory, saw themselves
relegated for the future to the silence and the
dust of libraries. But in 1838, twelve years after
the death of our great tragedian, an unexpected
event occurred : a reaction, which surprised even
those by whom it was desired, brought back to the
gi-eat classic works a crowd that could not be
accommodated within the theatre of the Rue
Richelieu, which only yesterday had been so un-
peopled. The young and great artist to whom
this miracle was due was Rachel.'

The time fixed for Rachel's debut was by no
means favourable, even if a tragedy of the old
school had been attractive, as at that epoch it
certainly was not. The time was high summer.
Consequently, writes M. Samson,

' She had to show herself for the first time amid

APPEARS AT THEATRE FRAN^AIS 207

the solitude habitual on such occasions. The only
people there were a sprinkled few in the orchestra-
stalls, regular subscribers, and those who had free
admissions, either as a rule or for the occasion.
Besides the spectators of this class, there were, of
course, the never-failing loungers of the foyer and
the side -scenes. This by no means numerous
assemblage is composed of actors who are not
playing, and of certain friends of the establishment
who, ha\'ing nothing to do in the evening, drop in
to enjoy behind the curtain the pleasure of a chat
and of the far niente.'

The languid interest with which the audience had
entered the theatre hung upon them for a time,
but, according to IM. Samson, it was soon dispelled:

' In the first three acts the part of Camille contains
nothing remarkable, except one scene between her
and Julie. The young tragedienne was listened to
with interest. People noticed the appropriate em-
phasis of her elocution, the clearness of her articula-
tion, and, in her action as in her speaking, a noble
simplicity to which they had long been unac-
customed. In the fourth act her success was
brilliant, and at the end of the celebrated curse
she was covered with applause loud enough to have
come from an audience of 2,000 spectators.'

There was one person present on the night of
Rachel's debut- — Mademoiselle Mars — whose praise
was enough to outweigh a whole theatre of others.
She had seen the pale face and wondrous eyes, and
heard the \i})ration of tone in the meagre, half-
grown pupil of St. ^Vulaire two years before, and
had then formed the opinion tliat great things

208 RACHEL

might be expected of her. INIars was the daughter
of JNIonvel, ' a tragedian,' according to M. Regnier,
' of the school which set up nature and simphcity
both in speech and action for their aim,' as against
the artificial and exaggerated style and declama-
tory sing-song which were then in vogue upon
the French tragic stage. Herself a mistress of
the art of graceful utterance and graceful motion,
no one was better qualified to measure the qualifica-
tions of the new candidate for theatrical honours.
M. de Varenne, who was in the box with Mars
upon the occasion, says :

' When Camille appeared upon the stage, Mars
followed her attentively ; then, turning to me, she
said, with a half nod and a sign of satisfaction :
" She walks the stage well." . . . Sabine addresses
a few words to Camille, when the latter appears
on the stage. Mademoiselle Rachel had not yet
opened her lips, when Mars turned to me again,
and, regarding me with an air of personal triumph,
said: "And she listens well." Listening well is
the height of art which few actresses attain — an art
as difficult — more difficult, perhaps — than that of
speaking well. . . . Camille spoke in her turn.
She had scarcely uttered half a dozen lines when
Mars exclaimed : " Ah, I told you ! she does not
declaim, she speaks !" When the famous impreca-
tion came, instead of the classic elevation of the
voice and those noisy outbursts of grief which
carry away the audience and force applause. Made-
moiselle Rachel, either through fatigue, calculation,
or disdain of received traditions, uttered these words
hoarsely, and with concentrated feeling, so that the
public, who expected something very different, did

APPEARS AS CAMILLE 209

not applaud. •* Ah !" remarked a young gentleman
in the box, " she lacks strength !" " But, sir,"
Mademoiselle Mars exclaimed, turning sharply to
him, as if stung to the cjuick, " surely you will
allow her to husband her strength ! Are you afraid
she will not grow old soon enough ? She grows
taller w^hile she acts, this young girl." For my
own part, adds M. de A^arenne, though far from
ill disposed to the young actress, I could not
summon up such an amount of admiration, and
w^as struck by INIademoiselle INIars' enthusiasm.'

Rachel repeated the part of Camille several times,
and always with increasing success. The receipts,
however, did not increase. At first, indeed, they
were most miserable : on the first night 753 francs,
and on subsequent repetitions of the play 373, 303,
and 595 francs respectively. The last sum was
reached on August 18, even although attention
had by this time been called to the exceptional
qualities of the young actress by her appearance
in four other important parts of the classical drama.
The enthusiasm, however, says M. Samson, ' made
up for want of numbers.'

' Her second part,' he continues, ' was Emilie in
"Cinna."* I remember well the amazement of
the audience. As 1 write I see before me all their
eyes bent upon the young girl, all their ears strained,
the better to enjoy this utterance which seemed so
novel, and of which the originality consisted in its

* This was played on June 16, 1838, four nights after
Rachers first appearance. She repeated the part on July 11,
but not again till September 27.

14

210 RACHEL

beino' at once natural and grandiose. Her third
part was Hermione, then Eriphile, then Amenaide
in " Tancrede." Always the same success, but
success without rebound, since all the leaders of
Parisian society were still at the watering-places,
and the few journalists who were left in Paris,
appalled by the word " tragedy," could not screw
up courage to cross the threshold of the Theatre
Fran^ais. At length came the month of October ;
the number of spectators increased, and my young
pupil continued her representations to splendid
houses. Oh, those glorious evenings !

' Never shall I forget them, any more than the
mornings consecrated to the stage education of my
marvellous scholar. I number them among the
most delightful hours of my life. What quickness
of perception ! AVhat nice accuracy in feeling and
tone ! Bear in mind that this child knew nothing ;
that I had to explain to her the character of the
personage she had to represent, and in a manner to
go through a little course of history with her be-
fore our lesson of declamation ; but when once she
understood me, she entered thoroughly into the
spirit of the part. Nothing was vague, nothing
left to chance. We noted every point together.
From the very first her elocution was of the
highest order, and worthy to serve as a model.
For Mademoiselle Mars, who — being, as she was,
the daughter of Monvel, an actor renowned for
truth and perfect intonation as a speaker — was an
excellent judge, came, after hearing Rachel, to
compliment me in the warmest terms, adding these
words : " This is how tragedy ought to be spoken ;
this was the way my father treated it." '

Rachel's greatest success with the public in these
early performances was in ' Amenaide, ' which she

HER HERMIONE 211

performed for the first time on August 8. The
house had been filled by free admissions of people
to whom her very name was unknown. They soon
felt that in her they saw no ordinary novice. She
was gi*eatly applauded throughout the piece, and
was recalled at its close, when a bouquet and
wreath were flung to her — these were days in
which such recalls and floral tributes had a real
significance — but still the receipts showed no
symptoms of improvement. On this night they
only reached 625 francs. Upon this, the lady who
was entitled, by her position in the theatre, to
claim the parts in which Rachel had made her trial
performances, importuned the director to bring
them to a close. But M. Vedel was firm. He
believed that his novice possessed the sacred fire
which must ere long attract the worship of the
Parisian public, and the representations were
continued.

As the shortening days of autumn brought
people back to Paris, they heard of the new star
that had begun to shine in the theatrical firma-
ment. The leading critics resumed their labours.
Chief among them, Jules Janin, the theatrical critic
of the Journal de.s Debats, was persuaded to see
her (September 4) in Hermione, the character of
which the best judges had spoken as her master-
piece. He entered the theatre expecting to see
only the merely respectable promise, of which he
had already seen too much among juvenile debu-

14—2

212 RACHEL

tantes ; he left it convinced that the French stage
possessed in this young girl a genius worthy of its
best days. His enthusiasm was expressed in his
next weekly feuilleton in the Debats with so much
fervour that public attention was arrested. Janin
was not likely to fail to remind the public that
he had predicted, in the review of Rachel's per-
formance in ' La Vendeenne,' that ' she possessed
talent of no common order, and that a great future
lay before her.' Now he proclaimed her as the
most marvellous actress his generation had seen
upon the stage. People had refused to believe
what he foretold of her ; ' now she is listened to
in the great tragedies of Corneille, Racine, and
Voltaire, encouraged, applauded.'

' She has found,' he goes on to say, ' the legiti-
mate development of her precocious dramatic
genius. It is nothing short of marvellous, this
uneducated child, without art, without preparation
of any kind ' — what must St. Aulaire and Samson
have thought of this ? — ' thus becoming the inter-
preter of our grand old tragedies ! She blows
their ashes into a flame by her genius and her
energy ; and remember she is small, decidedly
plain, with a narrow chest, an insignificant appear-
ance, and common speech. Do not ask her who
Tancrede, Horace, Hermione are, or about the
Trojan War, or Pyrrhus, or Helen. She knows
nothing, but she has that which is better than
knowledge : she has that sudden illumination,
which she throws around lier ; she grows ten inches
taller on the stage ; she raises her head, and ex-
tends her chest ; her eye brightens ; she treads like

M. CREMIEUX 213

a Queen ; her voice vibrates with the passion that
agitates her. . . . She is a priestess, a Pythoness,
this child of seventeen. The curse is the first
revelation of Rachel's power. The storm raging
in this grief-stricken breast is terrific. We tremble
before it as something superhuman, godlike.'

' She knows nothing.' A startHng but undoubted
fact, well known in the young actress's own circle,
and upon wliich some curious light was thrown by
the volume, ' Autographes : Collection Adolphe
Cremieux,' published in 1885. Rachel's parents
had introduced her in 1838 to M. Cremieux (after-
wards conspicuous as one of the Republican leaders
in 1848), whose practice as an avocat brought him
much into contact with the Jewish fraternity in
Paris. Both he and his wife grew warmly attached
to Rachel — so much so that she became a very
'enfant de la maison.' Cremieux took her educa-
tion in hand. Her orthography, as already men-
tioned, was villainous, l^ut Rachel hated writing,
or task-work of any kind. She would begin to
yawn after a few minutes' work with the pen, and
could not be got to fix her attention on spelling or
syntax or the formation of her letters. But talk
or read to her, and slie was all attention, and she
never forgot what slie learned under the guidance
of M. and Mdme. Cremieux in this way. How
much she had to learn may be judged by her asking
them, when reading the first cliapter of Genesis,
what ' tlie firmament' was.

214. RACHEL

It was well for her social reputation in those
days that she had sucli kind and intelligent friends
to put her in tlie way of repairing her educational
deficiencies. How awkwardly these sometimes
placed her is well illustrated by an incident which
occurred at the Cremieux dinner-table the day after
one of her most successful first appearances in
' Les Horaces.' Next her at table sat a young
man from Bordeaux, who spoke enthusiastically of
the rare good fortune by which he, a poor pro-
vincial, had been able to see her. ' A¥hat a splendid
creation is your impersonation of Camille !' he ex-
claimed. ' One does not know when to admire
you most : whether in the curse, which was never
given with such tragic fury, or while you are listen-
ing to the story of the death of the Horatii. What
marvellous pantomime at the moment of the Q;uil
mourut /'* At this Rachel whispered to Cremieux,
who sat on her other side, ' What is it, this Q?^'/7
mourut ' ? ' Hush !' replied Cremieux, ' say nothing ;
later on I will tell you.' When all the company
had retired, Rachel, who had been the queen of the
evening, came up to her host. ' Now, seriously,'

* 'Les Horaces/ act iii., scene 6, the famous reply of the
elder Horatius to Julia, when his invective against his third
son for having fled from the field is met by the question,
' Que vouliez vous qu''il fit contre trois ?' Camille is present
throughout the scene, but has not to speak. Hence Rachel's
ignorance of what Voltaire calls ' ce trait du plus grand
sublime, ce mot auquel il n'en est aucun de comparable dans
toute rantiquite.'

JULES JANIN 215

he said to her, ' do you not know what the famous
Qiiil niourut is ?' 'I assure you I do not,' was her
answer. ' What, then, do you read when you learn
a part ?' ' My own part and the answers.'

Had Cremieux been learned in the ways of
actors, he would not have been so surprised at this
revelation as he was. Stage history tells of many
eminent actors, as well as actresses, who, after the
practice of years, have been content to remain quite
as much in the dark as to every part of the plays,
even of Shakespeare, except what they had them-
selves to speak. Is this ignorance even now a
stranger to our own stage ? It is very strange,
however, that Rachel should not have been taught
better things by such masters as St. Aulaire and
Samson. M. Cremieux did his best to correct the
omission, and she proved an apt pupil in seizing
the whole features of the story, which the character
she had to represent was intended to illustrate.

Encouraged by the criticism of Janin on Rachel's
Hermione, those who had seen the debutante were
emboldened to gi\'e voice to the admiration which
they had felt, but had hitherto feared to express.
The effect was seen in a great increase of the
receipts the next night. Another article by Jules
Janin a fortnight later (September 24, 1838),
written in still more enthusiastic terms, effectually
roused the Parisian public. The theatre became
thronged to an extent hitherto unknown. People
spent hours in waiting for the opening of the doors.

210 RACHEL

Hundreds were turned away disappointed. The
new idol became the one great topic of conversa-
tion in all societies.

From this moment the receipts of the house ran
up to a figiu'e calculated to make every member of
the Comcdie Fran^-aise happy. Twenty-five pounds
a night was the average return of Rachel's first
eighteen performances. For the next eighteen it
was wdthin a fraction of £200 a night — a receipt of
which nothing would now be thought, but which
was then regarded as magnificent. In fact,
M. Vedel, the director of the theatre, himself
described it as 'colossal'; and he proved his sin-
cerity by raising Rachel's salary, at the end of
October, from 4,000 to 20,000 francs.

Her father, ever thinking less of his daughter's
art as art than as a valuable commodity for sale,
two months afterwards demanded that it should be
raised to 40,000, or exactly ten times the modest
£160 a year which in June, when they were living
au sixieme in the Rue Traversaire St. Honore, had
been regarded by the family as wealth. The de-
mand was resisted, but only for a time. The
theatre found it could not get on without Rachel,
and she could therefore dictate her own terms — an
advantage which neither she nor those around her
were likely to forego. The 40,000 francs demand
soon rose to 60,000, and had to be conceded.*

* This was the sum stipulated for by Rachel in 1840,
when she attained majority, and was free to act for herself.

HER ROXANE 217

But while papa and mama Felix were thinking
only of making up for the privations of the past by
raising the family income to the highest possible
figure, Rachel herself was straining every nerve, by
unremitting study and meditation, to gratify and
to maintain the admiration she had excited, adding
several new parts to her repertoire, and augmenting
her reputation by them all. Among these was
Roxane in Racine's ' Bajazet,' a character which it
wanted no small courage in a girl so young, and,
of necessity, so inexperienced in the passions by
which it is inspired, even to tliink of undertaking.
But courage was a quality in which Rachel was
never deficient; and with the precepts of M. Samson
to enhghten her, she yielded to JNI. \>ders request,
and allowed herself to be announced for the part
on November 29.

The house was crammed with an audience pre-
pared to admire. But when Rachel came to
grapple with the part upon the stage, she lost her
nerve ; her declamation showed none of its wonted
fire, her gestures none of their wonted appropriate

The exorbitance of her demands tlien and subsecjuently made
her very unpopular with her associates of the theatre ; for
although the receipts upon the nights she acted were very
great, they fell off so nmch on the nights she did not act,
that the balance for general distiihution was kept very low
indeed. So completely, in fact, did the public reserve itself
for Rachel, that the interests of the other members of the
establishment suffered rather than profited by her success.

218 RACHEl.

and spontaneous grace, and the sullen silence which
reigned tlnough tlie house on the fall of the curtain
was only too significant of entire failure. Anxious
to mitigate the censure of Rachel's stanchest friend
in the press, ^I. Vedel visited Jules Janin the next
day. They were discussing the disaster of the
previous night, wlien Rachel herself was announced.
' She was greatly agitated and embarrassed,' writes
M. Vedel, who told the story years afterwards.
' She hung down her head, said nothing, and
looked for all the world Hke a culprit before her
judge.' Janin received her most kindly, and tried
to cheer her, but told her plainly — for he was a
man true to his responsibilities as a critic — that,
notwithstanding all the interest and affection he
felt for her, he could not speak favourably of her
performance. 'Poor Rachel wept scalding tears,
like a scolded child. We did our best to comfort
her, Janin sparing no pains in this direction, but
insisting, nevertheless, that she should not repeat
the part.' On this point, however, he and M. Vedel
were by no means at one, for Vedel was satisfied
that Rachel would quickly retrieve her failure.
Accordingly, as he drove her home he told her
that, despite M. Janin, the play should be repeated
the next night but one, and she promised to be
ready. This her father tried to prevent, but
M. Vedel's resolution was not to be shaken. After
a stormy scene, in which papa Felix found his threat
that his daughter should not play fell upon deaf

JANIN ON HER ROXANE 219

ears, M. ^''edel wrote to Rachel, urging her in the
kindest terms not to Hsten to her father, or to put
her future in peril by violating the terms of her
engagement. This brought the following reply :

' Ne suis-je a vos ordres ? Quand on aime les
gens, on fait tout pour leurs plaire. Tout a vous.*
— Rachel.'

The next morning Jules Janin's article appeared.
It was remorseless :

' What,' it said, ' were people about in making
her play Roxane ? How could this child diA^ine a
passion of the senses, not of the soul ? . . . This
delicate girl, this puny, overtasked frame, this un-
developed bosom, this troubled tone — could these
suffice to represent the stalwart lioness whom we
call Roxane ? IMdlle. Rachel appeared, and in an
instant the house felt she was unequal to the task :
this was not the Roxane of the poet ; it was a
young girl astray in the seraglio.'

Not pleasant reading this for the director, still
less for the young actress. Putting the best face
on matters which he could, M. Vedel went to her
dressing-room before the play began. He found
her ready, and looking superb in her sultana cos-

* liacher.s granimai-, like hei- spelling, was very shaky at
this time, and, indeed, to judge from her published letters^
was never perfect. ' You little pedant,' she is reported to
have said to her favourite sister, Rebecca, who had dropped
something about the defects of the great tragedian's grammar,
' let me tell you, women such as I make and unmake grammar
as they please.'

220 llACHEL

tiinie. ' AVell, child,' he exchiimed, ' how do you
feel V ' Oh, well,' she answered, smiling, ' I have
forced them to let me have my way, but it has
cost me no small trouble. 1 had a terrible struggle
to face ; I believe things will go better to-night.'
' You are not afraid, then V ' No.' ' I like this
confidence ; it augurs well. You have read Janin's
article V ' Yes ; he pays me out finely. I am
furious, but so much the better. It has strung
me up. Anger is sometimes a useful stimulant.'

' To strive, to seek, to fight, and not to yield,'
is the creed of genius. With the young Rachel
it was a law. Accordingly, her performance that
night completely effaced the impression of her
former failure. It even threw all her previous suc-
cesses into shade. The audience were in raptures.
She was recalled at the end of the play with frantic
applause, and an avalanche of bouquets descended
upon her in such profusion that they had to be
removed by the servants of the theatre. After the
play M. Vedel repaired to her dressing-room, when,
making her way through the crowd of voluble
admirers that filled it, she threw herself into his
arms, exclaiming, ' Thanks ! thanks ! I felt sure
that you were right.'

From this point Rachel's position as the foremost
actress of her class was secure, and as she gained in
physical strength and in experience, her hold upon
her audiences became greater and greater ; for in
these early days she prosecuted her studies with

HER PERSONAL APPEARANCE 221

enthusiasm, and her heart was filled with high
aspirations after an exalted ideal.

M. Samson's description of lier person and style
in her early and best days, between 1840 and 1845,
will recall her vividly to those who had then the
good fortune to see her :

' Rachel,' he says, ' was over the middle height ;
her forehead was arched, her eyes deeply set, and,
without being large, very expressive ; her nose
straight, with, however, a slight cur^'e in it. Her
mouth, furnished witli small teeth, white and well
set, had an expression at once sarcastic and haughty.
Her throat was perfect in its lines, and her head,
small and with a low forehead, was set gracefully
upon it. She was ^'ery thin, but she dressed with
an art so subtle as to make of this thinness almost
a beauty. Her walk and gestures were easy, all
her movements supple — her whole person, in short,
full of distinction. She had, to use a common ex-
pression, the hands and feet of a duchess.* Her

* This description may be compared with that given by
Mrs. Fanny Kemble in her ' Records of Later Days,"* vol. ii.,
p. 99, where she speaks, writing in June, 1841, of Rachel as
' of a very good height, too thin for beauty, but not for
dignity or grace. . . . Her face is very expressive and
dramatically fine, though not absolutely beautiful. It is a
long oval, with a head of classical and very graceful contour,
the forehead rather narrow and not very high ; the eyes small,
dark, deep set, and terribly powerful ; the brow straight,
noble, and fine in form."' As we write, we have before us a
medallion profile, life-size, of Rachel, and a cast of her hand,
closed upon the dagger she used as Roxane — both gifts
from herself, in 1841, to Helen Faucit, who had gone to Paris
to see the actress whose fame had naturally created an interest
in one who had herself, in 1836, risen, while yet a mere girl,

222 RACHEL

voice, which was a contralto, was limited in its
compass ; but, thanks to the extreme accuracy of
her ear, she used it with exquisite skill, and drew
from it the finest and most delicate inflections.
AVhen she began to speak her tones were a little
hoarse, but this soon went off.

' When she first appeared at the Comedie
Fran9aise her figure had not reached the develop-
ment which it subsequently acquired : there was in
her small features, in her close-set eyes, a sort of
confusion, if I may be allowed the expression, and
people said she was ugly. Later on they said she
was beautiful. In point of fact, she was neither the
one nor the other, but both, according to the hour,
the day, the expression which dominated her face.

' Ah !' he continues, ' how to give an idea of this
admirable talent to those who have not heard her ?
I, who taught her for so many years the secret of
the art, am forced to own how impotent are my
attempts to make her known. . . . The talent of
the actor descends to the grave with him, and the
recollections which he has left with his admirers
— recollections always imperfect — fade away by
degrees from the memory, and perish at last with
the generation that loved and applauded him.'

into the highest rank in her profession. They met in the
houses of some of the best famihes of the Quartier St. Ger-
main. To beauty, in so far as that consists of finely balanced
symmetry of outline, Rachel could lay no claim ; but her
features had pre-eminently that ' best part of beauty,** due to
play of expression, which, as Bacon has said, ' no art can
express."" Her hand was small and beautifully formed, and
even in the cast shows how intense was the nervous force
which she threw into her action. The photogravure prefixed
to p. 193 of this volume very aptly represents the medallion
above refened to.

ALFRED DE MUSSET 223

We find an account of her, in what was the most
interesting period of her history, in a letter written
in INIay, 1839, by Alfred de Musset to a female
friend, which appeared in the volume of his
posthumous works published in 1867. It is one of
those vi\4d sketches which only a poet could have
written, and it places the young artist before us in
lines never to be forgotten. The ' noble enfant,''
as De INIusset calls her, had played Amenaide in
' Tancrede ' that evening superbly ; and in the great
scene of the fifth act she had seemed to De Musset
to surpass herself. She told him that she had
herself been so much overcome by emotion, her
tears falling thick and fast, that she had been afraid
she would have broken down. Emotion so strong,
all great actors have said, is generally fatal to true
artistic effect.* But Rachel was then young in her

* Thus Talma writes : ' Acting is a complete paradox ; we
must possess the power of strong feeling, or we could never
command and carry with us the sympathy of a mixed audience
in a crowded theatre ; but we must, at the same time, control
our sensations on the stage, for their indulgence would enfeeble
execution/ So again, M. Samson says (' Memoires,' p. 39) :
' An actor who should regard his own emotions in any other
light than as materials to be made use of, or make the
passions of his part his own, would run the risk of a fiasco.
Emotion stammers and sobs. It makes the voice broken and
unsteady. Indulged, it would cease to be articulate. The
natural effect of passion is to deprive us of self-control. The
head goes ; and why should you suppose that one should do
a thing well rather than ill when one has ceased to know
what one is doing at all t'' The truth, according to the best

224 RACHEL

vocation, and had not learned the self-control of
the practised artist.

She was on her way home from the theatre, with
a train of young friends of both sexes, when the
poet met her under one of the arcades of the Palais
Royal. ' Come home and sup with us,' she said ;
and home to her father's homely apartment in the
Passage A^ero Dodat the party went. They had
scarcely sat down when Rachel discovered that she
had left her rings and bracelets at the theatre. The
maid-servant — the household had but one— was
despatched to fetch them. Mama Rachel was
famishing ; others of the guests were conscious of a
void that cried aloud to be filled. But, alas ! there
was no servant to get the supper ready or to serve
it up. Rachel solved the difficulty.

' She rises,' writes De Musset, ' goes off to change
her dress, and repairs to the kitchen. In quarter
of an hour she returns in a dressing-gown and night-
cap, a handkerchief over her ears, pretty as an angel,
holding in her hand a dish, on which are three beef-
steaks, cooked by her own hand. She sets down
the dish in the middle of the table, saying, " Fall
to !" Then she returns to the kitchen, and comes

authorities, seems to be, that to be great an actor or actress
must, in studying a part, feel all the emotions proper to it,
be shaken by passion, weep tears over it, live through its
agonies, be transported by its joys, and do this so completely
that on the stage the right tone of feeling shall pervade the
impersonation, but be all the while held in check by the con-
trolling power of art.

RACHEL AT HOME 225

back holding in one hand a soup-tureen full of
smoking bouillon, and in the other a casserole with
spinach. Behold the supper ! No plates or spoons,
the maid having carried off the keys. Rachel opens
the buffet, finds a salad-bowl filled with salad, seizes
the wooden spoon, unearths a dish, and begins to eat.

' " But," says mama, " there are pewter plates in
the kitchen."

' Off goes Rachel in search of them, brings them,
and distributes them to the guests. On which the
following dialogue begins, in which you have my
assurance that 1 have not changed one word :

Mama. My dear, tlie beefsteaks are overdone.

Rachel. Quite true ; they are as hard as wood.
In the days that I did our house- work I was a better
cook than tliat. ^Vell, it is one talent the less.
\\''hat would you have ? I have lost in one way,
gained in another. Sarah, you don't eat.

Sarah. No ; I can't eat off a pewter plate.

Rachel. Oh ! and so it is since I bought a dozen
plated dishes out of my savings that you are too
fine to soil your fingers Avitli pewter ! If I grow
richer, you will soon be wanting one servant behind
your chair and another before it. {Pointing z<c it h her
fork.) I will never banish these old plates from
our house. They have served us too long. Isn't
it so, mama I

Mama {with her mouth full). What a child it is !

Rachel {turniiifr to me). Just fancy! when I played
at the Theatre Moliere, I had only two pairs of
stockings, and every morning

Here Sister Sarah began jabbering in German,
to prevent her sister from going on.

Rachel. Xo German here ! There is nothing to
be ashamed of At that time I had but two pairs
of stockings, and, to play at night, I liad to wash
a pair of them every morning. That pair was

1.5

226 RACHEL

hanging up on a cord in my room whilst 1 was
wearing the others.

/. And you did the house-work ?

Rachel I rose every day at six, and by eight all
the beds were made. I then went to market to
buy the dinner.

/. And did you take toll upon the purchases?
(Faisiez-vous danser I'anse du panier ?)

Rachel. No ; I was a very honest cook : wasn't I,
mama ?

Mama {going on eating). Oh, that's true.

Rachel. Once only \ played the thief for a
month. When I bought for four sous, I counted
five, and when 1 paid ten sous, 1 charged twelve.
At the end of a month I found myself at the head
of three francs.

1 {severely). And what did you do with these
three francs, mademoiselle ?

Mama {seeing that Rachel tvas silent). Monsieur,
she bought JVIoliere's works with them.

/. Indeed !

Rachel. Indeed yes ! I already had a Corneille
and a Racine ; a Moliere I sorely wanted. I
bought it with my three francs, and then 1 con-
fessed my crimes.'

This kind of talk bored the majority of the
guests, and three-fourths of them got up and left.
De Musset continues :

' The servant returns, bringing the rings and
bracelets. They were laid upon the table. The
two bracelets are magnificent — worth at least four
or five thousand francs. They are accompanied by
a crown in gold, and of great value. Tiie whole
lie higgledy-piggledy on the table with the salad,
the spinach, and the pewter plates. Meanwhile,

KACHEL AT HOME 227

struck with the idea of the housemaid's work, of
the kitchen, of the beds to make, and the toils
of the needy Hfe, I fix my eyes upon Rachel's
hands, rather fearing to find them ugly or injured.
They are delicately small, white, dimpled, and
tapering off into fine points — a true princess's
hands.

Sarah, who does not eat, continues to grumble
in German. . . .

Rachel [rcplijin^ to the German growls). You
worry me. I want to talk about my young days.'

Supper ended, Rachel brews a bowl of punch for
her guests, amuses herself by setting fire to it ; has
the candles — much to the horror of the Argus-eyed
mama, who obviously had her doubts as to what
De Musset might do in the dark — put under the
table, so as to heighten the effect of the blue
flames : and when they are put back, and the
punch distributed, takes the little poignard from
De Musset's cane, and uses it for a toothpick.

' Here,' says the poet, ' the common talk and
childish pranks come to an end. A single word is
enough to change tlie whole character of the scene,
and to bring into this picture poetry and the
artistic instinct.

/. How you read the letter to-niglit ! Vou were
greatly moved.

Rachel. Vcs. It seemed as if something within
me were going to break. But that is nothing.
I don't hke tlie piece [Voltaire's "Tancrede"]
much. It is artificial.

/. You prefer the plays of Corneille and Racine ?

Rachel. I love Corneille dearly, and yet he is

15-2

228 RACHEL

sometimes trivial, sometimes stilted. There is
not the ring of truth in these passages.

/. Oh, gently, mademoiselle!

Rdclicl. Let us see. VMien in Horace, for
example, Sabine says, "On pent changer d'amant,
mais non changer depoux "; T don't like that. It
is coarse.

/. You will admit, at any rate, it is true.

Rachel Yes ; but is it worthy of Corneille ?
Talk to me of Racine ! Him T adore. Every-
thing he says is so beautiful, so true, so noble !

/. Apropos of Racine, do you remember re-
ceiving some time ago an anonymous letter, which
contained a suggestion about the last scene of
"Mithridate"?

Raclicl. Perfectly ; I followed the advice given,
and ever since I have been greatly applauded in
this scene. Do you know who it was that wrote
to me ?

/. I do : it is the woman in all Paris with the
largest mind and the smallest foot. [This was a
description of Georges Sand, well known in Paris
at the time.] A^Hiat part are you studying just
now ?

Rachel. This summer we are going to play
" Marie Stuart " and then " Polyeucte," and per-
haps

/. Well?

Rachel {stiiking the table emphatically). AYell, 1
want to play Phedre. They tell me I am too
young, too thin, and a thousand other absurdities.
But I answer, it is the finest part in Racine. I
believe I can play it.

Sarah. Perhaps, dear, you are mistaken.

Rachel. That's my affair. If people say that I
am too young, and that the part does not suit me,
parbleau ! they said heaps of things about my play-

STUDYING PHEDRE 229

ing Roxane ; and what did they all come to ? If
they say that I am too thin, I maintain this is sheer
nonsense. A woman who is possessed by a shame-
ful love, but who dies ratlier than abandon herself
to it ; a woman parched up with the fire of passion
and the waste of tears,* such a woman cannot have
a chest like Madame Paradol. It would be con-
trary to all nature. T have read the part ten times
within the last eight days. How I shall play it I
do not know, but 1 tell you that I feel it. Let the
papers say what the\' please, they shall not change
my mind on the subject. They are at their wits'
end to find things to annoy me. when they might
help and encourage me ; but I shall act, if it comes
to that, for three people. ( Turning towards me. )
Yes ! I have read certain articles that speak out
frankly and conscientiously, and I know nothing
better, more useful ; but there are some people who
use their pen to lie, to destroy. They are worse
than thieves or assassins. They kill the mind by
pin-pricks. Oh. I feel as though I could poison
them !

Mania. jNly dear, you do nothing but talk : you
are tiring yourself. This morning you were up by
six. I can't imagine what you are made of. ^'ou
ha\e been chatter-chattering all the day, and played
to-night besides. You will make yourself ill.

Rachel (icif/i vivacifj/). Xo ! I tell you. no ! All
this gives me life. {T/ie?i turning to me.) Would
you like me to fetch the book ? V\'e sliall read the
play together.

/. Would I like it i \'ou could ?iot please me
more.

SaraJi. Hut, dear, it is half-past eleven.

* Rachel \v;i.s thinking of the line, ' .I'ai iiin<;iii, fai sccIk-
dans les fewx, dans les laiines.'

230 KACHEL

Rachel. Very well ; go to bed. A^^hat prevents
you V

Thereupon off' goes Sarah to bed. Rachel rises
and leaves the room. Presently she returns with
the volume of Racine in her hand. Her look and
bearing ha\ e in them something not to be described
— something solemn and devout, like that of an
officiating priestess on her way to the altar, bearing
the sacred ^'essels. She seats herself near De
Musset, and snuff's the candle. Mama, with a
smile on her face, drops off' into a doze.

' Rachel {opening- the volume xvitJi marked respect,
and bending over it). How I love this man! When
I put my nose into this book, I would like to stay
there two days without drinking or eating.

' Rachel and 1 began to read the '' Phedre," with
the book placed on the table between us. AH the
guests go away. Rachel, with a slight nod, salutes
them one by one as they leave, and goes on read-
ing. At ffrst she recites in a kind of monotone, as
if it were a litany. By degrees she kindles. We
exchange our remarks, our ideas, on each passage.
At length she comes to the declaration.* She
stretches out her right arm upon the table ; with
her forehead resting upon her left hand, which is
supported on her elbow, she gives full vent to her
emotion. Nevertheless she only speaks in a
suppressed voice. All at once her eyes sparkle —
the genius of Racine illuminates her face ; she
gi'ows pale, then red. Never did I behold anything

* That is, the fine scene, Act II., Scene 5, in which Phedre
makes confession to Hippolytus of her love for him.

ALFRED DE MUSSET 231

so beautiful, so interesting ; never, on the stage, has
she produced such an effect upon me.

• The fatigue, a Httle hoarseness, the punch, the
lateness of the hour, an animation almost feverish
on her small, girlish cheeks, encircled by the night-
cap, a strange, unwonted charm diffused over her
whole being, those brilliant eyes that read my soul, a
childlike smile, which finds the means of insinuating
itself through all that passes ; add to this, the table
in disorder, the candle with its flickering fiame, the
mother dozing beside us — all this composes at onct
a picture worthy of Rembrandt, a chapter of romance
worthy of " Wilhelm Meister," and a souvenir of
the artist's life which shall never fade out of my
memory.

• This went on till half-past twelve, when her
father returned from the opera, where he had been
to see Mdlle. Judith make her first appearance in
" La Juive." No sooner is he seated than he
addresses to his daughter two or three words of the
most churlish kind, ordering her to cease reading.
Rachel closes the volume, saying, " Disgusting ! I
shall buy a matchbox, and read in my bed alone."
1 looked at her ; great tears were standing in her eyes.

• It was indeed disgusting to see such a creature
treated thus. I rose and took my leave, filled with
admiration, with respect for her, and profound
sympathy.'

Years were to elapse and the young actress to
rise to the height of her fame, before she realized
her dream of impersonating Phedre. We see from
De Musset's narrative how early it had taken pos-
session of her mind. She had often dwelt upon
the subject with hei* friend, M. Cremieux, who had
again and again dissuaded her from the attempt.

232 RACHEr.

telling her she was too young" and could not under-
stand the character. One niornino- she arrived at
his study in the liighest spirits. * I know the part
of Ph^dre now ; shall I repeat it to you V she said.
Cremieux heard her, but felt sure when she had
finished that she could do much better. ' Do you
know,' he asked, ' the story of this Phedre, so
guilty and so unhappy ? When you say,

* " Ariane, ma soeur, de quel amour blessee
Vous mourutes aux boids ou vous futes laissee !"

have you present to your mind the woeful destiny of
Ariane ? Do you know into what shameful excesses
the fatal wrath of ^^enus plunged your mother?
In a word, have they taught you the legend of that
woeful race, of which you die " la derniere et la plus
miserable"?' 'No!' replied Rachel; 'pray tell it
me, dear Papa Cremieux.' To refuse was impos-
sible ; but how was such a story to be told to ears
which Cremieux believed to be chaste and pure ?
He managed to get over the task with what delicacy
he could. His pupil saw at a glance the bearing
of the tragic story. ' Now,' she said, when he had
done, ' would you like me to recite my part again ?'
She did so, and seemed to be transformed into that
victim of a guilty passion inspired by the ' haine de
Venus,' which she was destined soon after to make
a living reality, which those who had the good
fortune to see it could never forget.* But it was

'^ ' Autographes : Collection Adolphe Cremieux,"' p. 141.

IN BEST SOCIETY 233

well for her reputation that her appearance in the
character was delayed until her powers were fully
matured, and she was able to present it to the
world as her masterpiece.

Meanwhile the public of Paris were content to
see her again and again in the parts in which she
had fii'st won their regards, with the addition of a
few others — such as Esther (Racine), Laodice in
' Nicomede ' (Corneille), Pauline in ' Polyeucte '
(Corneille)— from the old classical pieces, which
had so recently been thought to have completely
lost their hold upon the stage.

The favourite of the theatre became also the
favourite of the saloons, and the doors of the most
exclusive houses, even of the Quartier St. Germain,
were thrown open to her. At none was she more
welcome than at that of Madame Recamier, where
she held her own with distinction amid tlie brilliant
circle which clustered round that fascinating woman.
What Rachel was then, Madame Lenormand de-
scribes in her ' Memoirs of ]Madame Recamier,' with
an accuracy for which those wlio met her in society
at this period can vouch.

' \Vhoever,' she writes, ' has not heard and seen
Mdlle. Rachel in a salon can liave only an incom-
plete idea of her feminine attractions, and of lier
talent as an actress. Her features, a little too
delicate for the stage, gained nuich l)y being seen
nearer. Her voice was a Httle hard, but her accent
was enchanting, and she modulated it to suit the
limits of a salon with marvellous instinct. Her

234 RACHEL

deportment was in irreproachable taste ; and the
ease and promptitude with M^hich this young girl,
without education or knowledge of good society,
seized its manner and tone, was certainly the per-
fection of art. Deferential with dignity, modest,
natural, and easy, she talked interestingly of her
art and her studies. Her success in society was
immense.'

What wonder ! In the poetical world in which
her imagination was then and had for years been
working she had lived in the society in which the
simplicity, earnestness, courtesy, and absence of
self-assertion that go to produce distinction of
manner are best learned.

It was well known fi'om what a stock she had
sprung, how sordid were the habits and tastes of
her parents, how little she could possibly have seen
of the refinements which are the common possession
of good society. To find her what Madame Lenor-
mand describes her to have been, while it created
general surprise, added immensely to the fascina-
tion under which her triumphs on the stage had
already placed men and women of the highest
culture, as well as the leaders in literature and art,
by whom her society was eagerly sought. She had
an air of perfect breeding, simple, unpretentious,
refined, holding her own in circles where the play
of wit and the address and sparkle of good conver-
sation were most conspicuous. But, sought after
as she was, it was difficult to conceal the defects of
orthography which the answers that had to be

M. CREMIEUX 235

written to the numerous letters she received would
have betrayed. In this dilemma her Mend
M. Cremieux came to her aid, and suppUed her
M'ith the drafts of nearly all the letters which she
had to write. Often, writes his biographer, people
said to him, ' What an extraordinary creature is
this Rachel ! Not satisfied Math being the first
tragic actress of the age, she writes like Madame de
Sevigne. Look at this charming letter I have just
received fi*om her.' And Cremieux read, without
remark, a letter, every word of which he had
already the best of all reasons for knowing. At
the same time it must be said that, however they
might fail in orthography or syntax, Rachel's letters
to her friend, of which his editor gives specimens,
are charming in feeling and clever to a degree, and
give promise of the admirable letter-writer which
she afterwards became.

The echo of Rachel's fame, confirmed as it was
by the great cities of France, in the course of
successful but most exhausting tours in 1840,
greatly excited public curiosity on this side of the
Channel ; and when she appeared at Her Majesty's
Theatre in May, 184-1, she was received with a
warmth for which she was not prepaied. In a
letter quoted in M. d'Heylli's volume (May 17.
1841 ) she writes :

'Here I am in London my success most
brilhant— for everybody says they never witnessed
anything to equal it. I made my lirst appearance

236 RACHEL

as Tlermione in " Andromaqiie," and T assure you
that, when 1 went upon tlie stage, niy feet shook
under me, and I beheve I should have dropped
down with fright, liad not a tremendous volley of
applause come to sustain me, and to rouse me to
fuller consciousness of all it behoved me to do to
merit this reception, which was mere kindness, and
nothing but kindness, since they had not yet heard
me. The bravos and plaudits accompanied me to
the close of my part, and then I was recalled.
Hats and handkerchiefs waved from the boxes, and
a number of bouquets fell at my feet. A mag-
nificent engagement has just been offered me for
next season.'*

A few days further on (May 31) she writes

* The company which Rachel brought with her to Eng-
land was a very weak one. She says of it, on recounting
to M. Cremieux the success of her first appearance, ' Mon
entourage n'a ete que pour me mieux faire ressortir.' This
was to the last what she liked. One day, when M. Cremieux
expressed regret not to have seen her play with Talma, she
exclaimed, ' I am heartily glad he did not live till my time !'
Her English tioupe on her first visit were obviously of a low-
type, not presentable to her English visitors. She writes to
M. Cremieux that she took care 'never to have them with
her till about nine in the evening, too late to be broken
in upon by gentlefolks ' {loc. supra cit., p. 167). It was no
doubt one of this vulgar troupe who had the bad taste
to tell a story of her which has often been repeated to her
disadvantage. She had returned from the palace, where the
Duchess of Kent, the night being cold, had with her own
hands placed a handsome Cashmere shawl on Rachefs
shoulders. Throwing it down upon a couch, she exclaimed
gaily, ' Oh, mes amis, que j'ai besoin de m'encanailler !'
After some hours of the icy restraint of a Court circle the
phrase must not be judged too severely.

APPEARS IN LONDON 237

to the same friend : • The Enghsh journalists
say quantities of fine things about me, and all
unsolicited " sans cartes de visite." On Wed-
nesday I am engaged to tlie Queen (Dowager)
at Marlborough House. All the Court will
be there ! I am so frightened !' All was not
sunshine, however. A bad attack of illness in-
terrupted her performances, and slie was sur-
rounded exclusively by strangers. Her sister
Sarali came over fi*om Paris. ' Ah,' Rachel writes
(June 15), 'how glad I am T made her come to
London ! I was so sad far away from all those
I love, and without the power even of speaking of
them ! I assure you this contributed greatly to my
eight days' illness.'

In the same letter she speaks of lier triumphant
success in Marie Stuart, which was certainly not
one of her best parts. ' Ten bouquets and two
chaplets fell at my feet with thunders of applause.
The receipts mounted to :3(),000 francs (£1,200)
and a few guineas. . . . 13,000 (£.520) were sent
to me next morning. I am content.'

In England Rachel was received in the best
society witli no less cordiality than she had been in
Paris. She still bore an nmblemished reputation as
a woman, without which in those days her admis-
sion into good society would have been impossible.*

* Our fine ladies liud not us yet been so completely
educated out of the simplest rules of propriety as not to
be startled bv the Hnnounccnient of an actress ushered into
their drawing-iooni a^ ' Mile. Sarah liernhardt et son fils."'

238 RACHEI.

The houses of the leading nobility were opened
to her. The Dowager-Queen iVdelaide paid her
marked attention. She performed at Windsor
Castle, and was presented by the Duchess of Kent
to the Queen, from whom she received a handsome
bracelet, with the inscription, ' Victoria Reine a
Mademoiselle Rachel.'*

The parts in which she appeared were not of a
kind to endear her to our Enghsh tastes, for they
had in them little of the womanly tenderness and
charm which Shakespeare has led us to look for in
our dramatic heroines, and for which neither her
voice nor powers of expression were well suited.
But these were of a kind that penetrated even
when they pained ; for not in our time had been
seen such thrilling delineations of the passions
enumerated by Mrs. Fanny Kemble as ' the haunt
and main region ' of Rachel's genius — ' scorn,
hatred, re\ enge, vitriolic irony, concentrated rage,
seething jealousy, and a fierce love, which seems in
its excess allied to all the evW which sometimes

* On receiving Her Majesty's invitation to Windsor
Castle, Rachel was delighted. But some of the people about
the Court told her that it would be proper for her to write
to the Queen the next day after her soiree there. ' Mon
cher Monsieur Cremieux,'' she writes to her friend, 'vous
voyez que, nialgre les grands progres que je fais dans le style,
11 me faudra cette fois encore avoir recours a vos complaisances
eternelles ' — an appeal not made in vain. In a letter to
M. Cremieux, Rachel gives a spirited account of the evening
at Windsor Castle.

HER VOICE 239

springs from that bitter-sweet root.' Her fine
though somewhat pecuUar voice was especially-
fitted for the expression of these emotions. Mrs.
Kemble says of it, it was ' the deepest and most
sonorous ' she ever heard from woman's lips. ' It
wants,' she adds, ' brilliancy, variety, tenderness,
but it is hke a fine, deep-toned bell.' And it was
managed witli a consummate skill, which turned
its natural advantages to the fullest account.

The English critics complained of the want of
the more attractiAe feminine qualities in Rachel's
performances. It was a want which no actress —
no young one at least — would be willing to own ;
and in the hope of disproving the charge, Rachel,
in the following year, essayed the character of
Chimene in Corneille's ' Cid,' and of Ariane in the
same author's tragedy of that name. But these
impersonations only confirmed the judgments of
those of her critics, in Paris as well as in London,
who denied to her the power of touching ' the sacred
source of sympathetic tears.' Still, within her own
peculiar province she stood alone ; and when she
returned to England in 1842, she established that
supremacy even more firmly by an obvious im-
provement not merely in physical power, but also
in the resources of her art. Not the least in
Rachel's estimation of the trophies which she
carried away from this \ isit was a letter from the
Duke of VV^ellington, assuring her of liis great
anxiety to be present at her iKiietit, for wliich he

•240 RACHEL

had secured a box, which he will not fail to occupy
' ,s7 // lui devieut possible ' — the French, it will be
observed, is rather of the ' Frenche atte Bowe '
kind — ' de s'absenter ce jour la de Fassemblee du
Parlement dont il est membre. II regrettera
beaucoup si il le trouve impossible ainsi d'avoir
la satisfaction de la voir et I'entendre encore line
fois avant son depart de Londres.'

The enthusiasm of Paris and London was, if
possible, surpassed by that of the principal cities
of France and Belgium. Some of Rachel's letters
from Rouen, Bordeaux, and Marseilles, quoted in
M. d'Heylli's volume, give a vivid picture of the
heavy cost to the strength and to the emotions
of the young artist by which her successes in the
provinces were purchased, at the time when she
ought to have been seeking repose. Thus, on
June 11, 1840, she writes from Rouen to a friend :
' True, I have success, but not one friend. Here I
never stir out. 1 write all day long ; 'tis my only
distraction. It seems to me death were preferable
to this life, which I drag along as a convict drags
his chain.' Everywhere the fatigue had to be
encountered of receiving all sorts of admirers, who
quite forgot to consider whether their compliments
compensated for the inroads they made upon the
artist's hours of study and repose. ' I am inter-
rupted every minute,' she writes from Bordeaux
(August 4, 1841) to Jules Janin, 'by people who
constantly ply me with the same phrases, and this

IN THE PROVINCES 241

without ever altering a syllable.' The odes and
sonnets from young poets, which rained upon her,
provoked more of her mirth than of her sympathy.
' To-day,' she writes a few days later, ' I received
another set of verses from a young avocat ; people
are warm in the South, and declarations abound.
These amuse me, when they are written ; but, par
bouche, my tragic air comes in to my assistance,
and I make short work of them.' In the midst of
all these distractions Rachel reads and studies, and
dreams of the new part of Judith, on which
Madame de Girardin is at work for her.* But
the strain was too heavy, and on August 19, 1841,
we find her writing from Bordeaux : ' Sooth to say,
I know not if I can live long in this way. I am
exhausted, sad, and were I to write longer 1 should
weep hot tears.' Rachel w^as still under age, and at
the disposal of her parents. They seem to have
taken no account of her fatigue. The receipts she
brought in were superb. What more, to their way
of thinking, could their gifted daughter desire ?

Deeply and fatally as Rachel became infected in
after-years with the same greed of gain, it is obvious
from her letters that in these early years it had not
deadened in her the instincts of the artist. When

* It was produced in April, 1843, but. played only nine
times. Even if it had hvau a stioiiorcr })lay than it was, it
had no chance in competition with the ' Flicdre,' in which
Rachel had recently appeared, and about which all Paris was
in ecstasy.

16

242 RACHFJ.

playing in Marseilles in June, 1843, she read her
audience a lesson which our English audiences
would be all the better of having occasionally read
to them. A^^riting to Madame de Girardin, she
says :

* Let me tell you of a little stroke of audacity,
which fills me with alarm when I recall it in cold
blood. In the middle of one of the most stirring
scenes of " Bajazet " someone took it into his head
to throw me a wreath, to which I paid no heed,
desiring to keep in the part ("rester en situation"),
while the audience shouted, " The wreath ! the
wreath !" Atalide, thinking more of the audience
than her part, picked up the wreath and presented
it to me. Indignant at a barbarous interruption of
this kind, truly worthy of an opera audience, 1
seized the unlucky wreath with indignation, and,
flinging it on one side, went on with Roxane.
Fortune loves the bold. Never was there a stronger
proof of this axiom, for this movement of un-
studied impulse was hailed with three salvoes of
applause.'

So, again, when writing to her young brother,
Raphael FeHx, from Lyons (July 7, 1843), her
words of excellent advice show that her heart still
burned with the enthusiastic reverence for her art,
from which she drew her inspiration, and by which
Alfred de Musset had been so deeply fascinated.

' Now, my dear brother,' she writes, ' tell me
something of your pursuits, your plans lor the
future, for it is time you were up and doing. You
will soon be a man, and you ought to know " Que

LETTER TO HER BROTHER 243

I'habit ne fait pas le moine." If. as I foresee, your
inclinations carry you towards the stage, try at
least to look upon the actor's vocation as an art ;
treat it as a matter of conscience, not as something
merely to make a position for you — as one does
^vith a girl, who is married off" when she leaves a
convent in order that she may have the right to
dance at a ball six times instead of three— but
rather out of love, out of passion for those works
which feed the mind and which guide the
heart. . . .

' It is possible for a woman to attain an honour-
able position, where she is esteemed and respected,
without very possibly having that polish which the
world rightly calls education. Why ? you will ask
me. It is because a woman does not lose her
charm, but the reverse, by maintaining a great
reserve in her language and demeanour. A woman
answers questions, she does not ask them ; she
never initiates a discussion, she listens. Her natural
coquettishness makes her long for information ;
she retains what she learns, and, without having a
solid foundation, she thus acquires that superficial
culture which may upon occasion pass for real
culture. But a man ! what a difference ! All that
the woman cannot know the man should have at
his finger-ends ; he has occasion for it every day of
his life ; it is a resource with which he augments
his pleasures, diminishes his pains, gives variety to
his enjoyment, aud which, moreover, makes him be
regarded as '* un homnie d'esprit." Think of this,
and if the early days seem to you somewhat hard,
then refiect that you have a sister who will feel
pride and pleasure in your success, and who will
cherish you witli all her soul. I venture to hope
that this letter will not have appeared to you too
long to read, but, on the contrary, that you will

16-2

244 RACHEL

often find time to re-read it, and if not often, why,
then, at least every now and then.'

It is in this and otlier letters to her family that
Rachel as a woman shows at her best. There is
abundance of good sense, of sprightliness and of
esprit in her other letters, but in these she lets us
see that she has a heart. I^ove of kindred is no
uncommon phenomenon even in the most selfish,
and it certainly does not deserve a place among the
higher virtues. But where a life is in all other
ways tainted Avith selfishness, we hail this as a
saving grace, and are fain to think that under
happier conditions it might have blossomed into
qualities of a more generous strain.

A strange family they must have been, vulgar,
quarrelsome, incapable of profiting by the oppor-
tunities of a more refined life which Rachel's
success had opened to them. In a letter in the
writer's collection from Rachel to her sister Sarah,
about the year 1848 — Rachel had the bad habit of
very rarely putting the date to her letters — one
sees how much disquietude their habits caused her.

' Papa,' she writes, ' has just received a letter
from Rebecca, telling him of a scene that has taken
place between you, her mother, and herself. My
dear Sarah, it is high time you should change your
character, for Rebecca is no longer a cliild, and, for
her age, let me tell you, not inferior to you in any
respect. Doubtless I do wrong to meddle in all these
quarrels, but the fact is, I have not the sangfroid
to be indifferent to them, and I am humiliated by

FAMILY QUARRELS 245

seeing my family beha\nng to each other in a way
that makes me ask if God was not mistaken in
pulling us out of the mire in which we li^•ed before
I entered the dramatic career. Neither the one
nor the other of you are worthy of the good fortune
Heaven has showered upon you these last ten
years. It is shameful that the whole family is
not more grateful. In words they are more than
generous, in act they are ungrateful in the extreme.
There are no two families with less heart than ours.
The Halle is not more filthy than your tongues.
IVIy poor Sarah, learn to appreciate your position
better. ... The advice I give you is that of a
sincere friend. In life, when one needs the aid of
others, it is necessary to make concessions, or at
least not to repay them with insult.'

Her father's name rarely appears in Rachel's
letters ; but both to and of her mother she always
speaks with the filial devotion of her race.* She
was warmly attached, not only to her brother, but
also to her four sisters, all of whom had their way
to success upon the stage paved by her ;t but

* In a letter to her mother, written June 9, 1857, u few
months before her death, Rachel says very charmingly : ' (^n
ne remercie pas une mere des ennuis, des fatigues qu'on lui
cause ; on faime, et jamais on ne s'acquitte vers elle . . . et
voila !' Both father and mother survived her, the former
dying in 1872, the latter in 1873.

t Sarah, the eldest and least capable as an actress, left the
stage, and made a fortune by the sale of the Fmu de Fees,
which still keeps its place on many toilet-tables. She died at
Paris in 1877. Dinah and Lia Fcli\ survived her, and the
latter, we believe, appeared for a lime upon the sbige of the
Comcdie l''ran(,aise.

246 RACHEL

Jlebecca, the youngest and most gifted, was her
especial favoiuite. Over her she watched with a
mother-Hke care ; and when the young girl was
taken from her by early death in 1854, just as she
had begun to give promise of becoming an orna-
ment to the stage,* the blow struck home. Thus,
when urged, after she was herself fatally touched
by the same malady, consumption, to go for her
health to Eaux Bonnes in 1856, Rachel wrote, ' I
should never regain my health there, where I saw
my poor darling sister Rebecca die.' And within
a few hoiu's of her own death she found comfort in
the thought of their reunion. ' Ma pauvre Re-
becca,' slie exclaimed, 'ma chere soeur, je vais te
revoir ! Que je suis heureuse !'

From the glimpses wliich ha\ e been furnished to
us of the home in which Rachel was reared, there
could have been in it little to refine or elevate the

* Great hopes that llebecca would e({ual her sister upon
the stage were at one time entertained. In a letter (Decem-
ber 30, 1845) now before me from a friend, who had been
most helpful in introducing Rachel to the best society in
Paris, he writes : ' Poor Rachel is very languishing, and,
perhaps, dying. Her method of life is so contrary to the
necessities of her health ! I have not seen her since two
or three years. I pity her so sincerely ! Such fine endow-
ments ! Such remarkable qualities ! Alas ! Alas ! Alas !
Her young sister Rebecca played the other day in my salon
with an incredible talent. Some of the distinguished spec-
tators thought that she is even superior to Rachel. That
she is, no ! That she will be, I am disposed to believe it.
God grant her to have another life than her sister !'

MORAT. LAPSE 247

moral nature. There is a charming passage in
Rabelais, where, borrowing from Lucian, he makes
Cupid tell his mother, Venus, that those who were
wedded to the Muses were so absorbed in their
noble pursuit, that he unbandaged his eyes, and
laid down his quiver, and, in very reverence for
their high and pure natures, sought not to infect
them with the sweet poison of his shafts. The
apologue sprang from a juster and nobler apprecia-
tion of the qualities of the true artist, than the
modern belief that to indulge the sensuous appetites
and passions is a characteristic and a necessity of
the artistic temperament. In the early days of her
triumphs, Rachel's heart seems to have been kept
pure amid many temptations by ' the holy forms of
young imagination,' and, had they contiimed to be
cherished there, her career would liave gone on
brightening to tlie close. But it proved not to be
of the kind which the Cupid of the fable spares.
To her infinite loss, she gave the jewel of her
honour to a man who, when she found him worth-
less and discarded him, took the incredibly base
revenge of making her weakness known to the
world by publishing her letters to himself*

* When the rumours of this scandal first got abroad the
Cremieux refused to beHcve them, and Rachel protested to
them her innocence. Details were made public. On this
Madame (Vemieux then wrote to her. ' Rachel,' ran her
words, ' my dear child, if our prayers have any power over
you, answer me, and say that you will do what we ask of you.
You would not desire to he in I'aris niul in London merely

248 RACHEL

Straightway society turned its back upon the
erring sister whom it had believed to be spotless ;
and she, made reckless apparently by what had
liappened, was at no pains to retrieve her damaged
reputation. Her 'tragic air' no longer kept suitors
at bay, and she became twice a mother of sons :
first in 1844, and again in 1848 — Count Walewski
claiming, and being accorded, the honours of pater-
nity in the first case ; while in the second the boy
received only his mother's name. Rachel, the great
tragedienne, still reigned supreme on the stage of
the Comedie Fran^aise, but she was no more seen
in the salons, where to be admitted was an honour ;
and good men there, who had admired her genius
and the charm of her manner in her early days,
spoke of her with a sigh as ' Pauvre Rachel !'

No cloud had as yet overshadowed her personal

the woman people go to see as actress because of her superior
talent, you who up to this moment have been the child so
pure and charming, whom Queens and personages of the
highest station were delighted to summon to their salons and
palaces ; you would not wish that young girls should shun
you, you from whom young girls of the highest distinction
asked, and gave to you in return, the title of sister. . . .
I prefer writing to you myself to trusting to the pen of my
husband. He is confounded ; he was far from giving heed to
this general outcry. On Monday, at one, he will call for
your answer. May it permit us to declare publicly that you
are always, as we know you are, the Rachel whom we love
with all the tenderness of our hearts !' A servant was sent
for the answer, and was told by Rachel that there \^ as none.

HER PHEDRE 249

character when, on January 24, 1843, she made her
first appearance as Phedre. The character, Hke
Jidiet on our stage, has always been regarded in
France as the touchstone of an actress's tragic
powers. Champmesle, Adrienne Lecouvreur, Dii-
mesnil, Chiiron, Raucourt, Georges, Duchesnois,
all regarded it as trying their skill to the uttermost ;
and Clairon, who alone of them all was able not
only to act but to write well, says of herself in it :
' I am forced to admit that, even when I spoke and
acted my best, I always fell far short both of the
author and of my own ideal.' How true was
young Rachel's conception of the part is apparent
from De Musset's description. But in having
M. Samson's guidance in this, as in her other most
important characters, she was peculiarly fortunate,
for he Iiad heard Talma read it at the Conserva-
toire.

'1 see him,' lie writes (' Memoires.' p. 79), *!
hear him still. Destitute of all the means of illu-
sion, without theatrical costume, a chair between
his legs and an eye-glass in his liand, he was as
tragic as upon the stage, and made us thrill as he
spoke to us the verses of Andromaque or of
Phedre. In the declaration of Phedre to Hippo-
lytus, I hear the rising passion of his tones, as he
delivered the words, " Mais fidele, mais fier, et
ineme un peu farouche. " The way also in whicli he
said, " Cette noble pudeur colorait son visage.'
made tlie line stand vividly out, and gave it a grace
not to be expressed. " Xo sti-aining foi- effect !
Let not a trace of anything of the kind be seen !"

250 RACHEL

he said to a Phcdre of his class who did not appear
to compreliend him. " Bear in mind that Phedre,
who has been consumed for a long period by her
passion, has passed three days without food and
three nights without sleep. r3oes not QCnone say
to her :

' Les ombres par trois fois ont obscurci les cieux,
Depuis que le sommeil est entre dans vos yeux,
Et le jour a trois fois chasse la nuit obscure,
Depuis que voire corps languit sans nourriture'?

" Phedre's life is the fever that burns her up and
the dream that haunts her : she is not on the earth,
she is in the clouds," and the voice of the great
professor grew muffled, like his look, as he made
the wife of Theseus speak.'

To an artist of Rachel's intelligence, a record
such as this, enforced by voice and action as
M. Samson would enforce it, must have been of
priceless value. Those who saw her play Phedre
in her best days — for it lost much of its weird charm
in the latter part of her career — will remember the
same shrinking look and the same muffled voice
throughout the avowal of her love for Hippolytus,
which so impressed her master in Talma's reading.
But, indeed, the whole performance, from her
entrance upon the scene up to her death at the
close, was a thing never to be forgotten. There
was something appallingly true and terribly beautiful
in this woman wasting away by inches in the con-
suming fires of a passion Avhich slie abhorred, but
which Venus herself was fanning in her veins with

HER PHEDRE TRIUMPHANT 251

pitiless persistency. It was real as life itself, but it
was reality steeped in tlie hues of poetry. The
outlines of the conception were broad and large ;
but every word, every look, every movement, had
a specific value.

Not all at once, however, did this fine impersona-
tion reach this pitch of excellence. Rachel, on the
night she played it first, lost her nerve, as she had
done on her debut as Roxane. Her performance
A\as without inspii'ation, and the audience saw in
her only tlie skilful artist, who had calculated lier
effects with care, but who left tlieir hearts and
sympathies untouched. Nevertheless, the ideal was
clear hi her mind. Nor did she rest until she had
found the true means of expressing it. Each time
she played the part she grew nearer its embodiment,
till in about two years it became, what many like
ourselves must remember it, all that Racine himself
could have desired.* To this hom* it stands out in
solitary splendour ; for the attempts of Ristori and
of Sarah Bernhardt in the part are unworthy to be
named in the same breath. They only served to
mark how wide is the difference between the
merely picturesque and practised actress, and her
in whom the intuitions of genius are disciplined
and fortified by the resources of art. The same
contrast was no less apparent between the Adrienne

* In 1H4'5 she writes to M. Samson : ' I have been givin<r a
(leal of study to Phedre. I will call to-morrow to ask you
what mv profound researches have come to."

252 RACHEL

Lecouvreur of these ladies and the Adrienne
Lecouvreur of Rachel. M. Legoure, one of the
autliors of the piece, in his ' Memoirs ' records an
incident in the first rehearsal of the fifth act that
furnishes a glimpse of the intensity of feeling which
g'dvc Rachel such a power over the hearts of her
audience. They had been. rehearsing the previous
acts till midnight. Most of the actors had left the
theatre, and the stage was illuminated only by the
dim light of a small lamp near the prompter's box.
' We are monarchs,' Rachel suddenly exclaimed,
' of all we survey. Suppose we try the fifth act,
which we have not yet rehearsed.' This was done,
and when the rehearsal was over Rachel said not a
word, but sat down, wiping tears on tears from her
eyes.

' T went up to her,' says Legouve, ' and in the
guise of praise pointed to tlie perturbed faces of
her fellow-actors. "My dear Mdlle. Rachel," I
said, taking her hand, " you played that fifth act
as you will never play it again." " I think so too,"
she replied, " and do you know why ?" " Yes ;
because there was nobody there to applaud you ;
because you did not give a moment's thought to
the effect ; because for the time being you were
poor Adrienne herself, dying in the middle of the
night in the arms of her two friends." She re-
mained silent for a moment, then said, " You are
altogether mistaken. A much stranger pheno-
menon took hold of my mind. A nameless some-
thing told me all at once that I, like Adrienne,
should die young. 1 seemed to be in my own room

HER ADRIEXNE LECOUVREUR 258

breathing my last. I was watching my own deatli-
bed. When I uttered the words, ' Farewell, ye
triumphs of the stage. Farewell, ye delights of the
art 1 have loved so well,' 1 was shedding real tears.
It was because I was thinking M'ith despair, that
time would efface all traces of what was my talent
once, and that soon there would remain nothing of
her who was once Rachel !" '

Her acting of that scene had in it a depth of
pathos that was never to be forgotten. It would
have moved a heart of stone. In 1849, when it
was reproduced in England, Rachel's power had
visibly declined : yet her treatment of this striking
but painful character furnished a standard by which
to measure the capabilities of those who ventured
to enter into competition with her, that told
severely against them.

Of the plays written for Rachel — fifteen in all —
* Adrienne Lecouvreur * alone has kept the stage.
The others, either from being poor in themselves,
or affording little scope for her peculiar qualities,
lived for but a few niglits. To this tlie ' Lady
Tartufe' of Madame de Girardin is scarcely an
exception. The Madame de Blossac of Rachel
alone saved this unpleasant play ; and yet it was
not until the fifth act that it afforded any scope for
the display of her best powers. It was performed
for thirty-fi^■e nights ; but the fact that it had no
vitality beyond what Rachel gave it was made
apparent M'hen it was revived in 1857 at the
Com^die P"ran9aise. with Madame Plessy in the

254 RACHEL

part. For although tliat most attractive actress
brought to the performance all the charms of a
beautiful person and a most refined talent, the play
was performed to empty benclies, and for only
six times. Two graceful little pieces — Armand
Bai-thet's ' Le Moineau de Lesbie,' and the ' Horace
et Lydie' of Ponsard — which Rachel made pecu-
liarly her own by exquisite grace of manner and
subtle beauty of utterance, long continued to
survive in the recollections of Parisian playgoers.
But they are well content to forget her Thisbe
in Victor Hugo's ' Angelo,' her INIessalina and
Lisiska in Maquet and J. I^acroy's detestable
' Valeria,' and other parts wholly unworthy of her
powers, which she made the mistake of accepting.

Rachel had the idea that slie could play comedy,
and even hankered, it seems, after the parts known
on the stage as souhrettes. The opinion was not
shared by M. Samson or her best critics ; and
although she played Moliere's Celimene in England
and elsewhere, they prevented her from perilling
her reputation by doing so in Paris. She was not
by any means tlie only eminent tragic actress who
has failed in comedy. Mrs. Siddons' Rosalind was
at once commonplace and lachrymose ; and Miss
O'Neill's Lady Teazle so lacked breeding, that,
although she was then in the height of her reputa-
tion, she was not allowed to repeat it. The woman
as she is in herself, pure and good, humorous and
refined, or the reverse, as it may be, speaks out in

HER WANT OF LADYHOOD 255

comedy. If she be wanting in essential ladyhood,
the flaw is sure to make itself felt. It was felt
in Rachers performances, where the mcidents and
passions ol the scene came near ordinary life, and
seemed to bring to the surface the hard and tant
soit peu Bohemian elements of her nature. The
free play of movement, the flexibility, the agile
grace, the playfulness veiling depth of feeling,
which make the charm of comedy, were not within
her command. She measured her own strength
perfectly when, writing to M. I^egouve, to explain
why she would not act his Medea, she said :

• I see the part is full of rapid and violent move-
ments ; I have to rush to my children, I have to
lift them up, to carry them off the stage, to contend
for them with the people. Tliis external vivacity
is not my style. AVhatever may be expressed by
physiognomy, by attitude, by sober and measured
gesture — that I can command ; but where broad
and energetic pantomime begins, there my execu-
tiv^e talent stops.'

Rachel, as an artist, stood at her best between
the years 1843 and 1847. From that time she
sensibly fell off', and the reason of her doing so is
ob\'ious. She had set her mind more upon the
improvement of hei- fortune than of her skill as the
interpreter of the great dramatists of her country.
Her physical strength, never great, was hnislily
expended on engagements in all (juarters wliere
money was to be picked up, and where she went

256 RACHEL

on reiterating the same parts until they lost all
freshness for herself, and, as a consequence, that
charm of spontaneousness and truth which they
had once possessed. It was in vain that wise
friends like Samson and Jules Janin warned her
against the ruin she was causing to her talent and
to her healtli. The simple, self-centred life, which
they urged her to cultivate, of the true artist, to
whom the consciousness of clearer perceptions and
of finer execution, developed by earnest study,
brings ' riches fineless,' was abandoned for the
excitement of lucrative engagements constantly
renewed, and of new circles of admirers serving
up the incense of adulation in stimulating pro-
fusion.

To this there could be but one end, and that a
sad one. The stram upon the emotions of a great
tragic actress, under the most favourable con-
ditions, is enough to tax the soundest constitution.
She must ' spurn delights and live laborious days '
if she is to maintain her hold upon an inexorable
public, who always expect to see her at her best.
As Rachel herself says in writing to Madame de
Girardin (May 2, 1851), ' On ne mange pas toujours
quand on veut, lors-qu'on a I'honneur d'etre la
premiere tragedienne de sa majeste le peuple
fran^ais.' Long seasons of rest for both body and
spirit could alone have enabled her to be true to
her own genius. These Rachel would not take
until too late. Thus we find her in 1849, during

GREAT PECUNIARY SUCCESS 257

three months that should have been given to
repose, playuig in no fewer than thirty-five towns
from one end of France to the other, and giving
seventy performances in the course of ninety days.
' Quelle route,' she writes, ' quelle fatigue, mais
aussi quelle dot !' The day was not far off when
she was doomed to feel in bitterness of heart how
dearly this ' dot ' was purchased.

The temptation of wealth which her European
fame brought her was no doubt great. The
sums she received in England, Belgium, Holland,
Austria, Prussia, and Russia, were enormous, and
the adulation everywhere paid to her might have
made the steadiest head giddy. At the staid
Court of Berlin she was received in 1853 with
courtly honours. The Emperor Nicholas of Russia
approached her, after a private performance at
Potsdam, with all the chivalrous gallantry whicli
sate so gracefully upon him ; and when she offered
to rise as he accosted her, took her by both hands
and pressed her to remain seated, saying as he
did so, ' Asseyez vous, mademoiselle ; les royautes
comme la mienne passent, la royaute d'art ne passe
pas.' And when, in the following year, she went
to Russia for six months, she not only brouglit
back £12,000 as the solid gains of her visit, but
such recollections of courtly homage paid to lier
as she describes witli admirable vivacity in the
following letter from St. Petersburg to her sister
Sarali :

17

258 RACHEL

' Yesterday evening your humble servant was
entertained like a queen— not a sham tragedy
queen, with a crown of gilded pasteboard, but a
real queen, duly stamped at the royal mint. First
of all, realize to yourself the fact that here the
Boyards all follow me, stare at me as if I were
some strange animal, and that I cannot move a
step without having them after me. In the street,
in the shops, wherever I go, or may be caught a
glimpse of, I am marked and pointed at. I no
longer belong to myself.

' To sum up all, the other day I was invited to
a banquet, given in my honour at the Imperial
Palace — a fact, oh daughter of papa and mamma
Felix. It came off yesterday. AVhat a regale !
When I reached the palace, lo, there were gorgeous
footmen, all powder and gold lace, just as in Paris,
to wait upon and escort me : one takes my pelisse,
another goes before and announces me, and I find
myself in a saloon gilded from floor to ceiling, with
everybody rushing to salute me. It is a grand duke
— no less — the Emperor's brother, who advances to
offer me his hand to conduct me to the dinner-table
— an immense table, raised upon a sort of dais, but
not laid out for many — only thirty covers. But
the guests, how select ! The Imperial I amily, the
grand dukes, the little dukes, and the archdukes —
all the dukes, in short, of all calibres ; and all this
tra-la-la of princes and princesses, curious and
attentive, devouring me with their eyes, watching
my slightest movements, my words, my smiles — in
a word, never keeping their eyes off me. Well, do
not imagine that I was in any way embarrassed.
Not the least in the world ! I felt just as usual —
at least, up to the middle of the repast, which,
moreover, was excellent. But everybody seemed
to be much more occupied with me than with the

RUSSIAN ENTHUSIASM 259

viands. At that point the toasts in my honour
begin, and very strange indeed is the spectacle
which ensues. The young archdukes, to get a
better view of me, quit their seats, mount upon the
chairs, and even put their feet upon the table — I
was about to say into the plates ! — and yet nobody
seemed the least surprised, there being obviously
some traces of the savage still even in the princes
of this country ! And then the shouts, the deafen-
ing bravos, and the calls upon me to recite some-
thing. To reply to toasts by a tragic tirade was
indeed strange, but I was equal to the occasion.
I rose, and, pushing back my chair, assumed the
most tragic air of my repertoire, and treated them
to Phedre's great scene. Straightway a deathlike
silence ; you might have heard the flutter of a fly,
if there be such a thing in this country. They all
listened devoutly, bending towards me, and con-
fining themselves to admiring gestures and stifled
murmurs. Then, when I liad finished, there was
a fresli outbreak of shouts of bravos, of clinking
glasses, and fresh toasts, earned so far that for the
moment I felt bewildered. Soon, however, I, too,
caught the infection, and, excited at once by the
odour of the wine and of the flowers and of all this
enthusiasm, wliicli had the effect of tickling what
little pride I liave, I rose again and began to sing,
or rather declaimed, the Russian national hymn
with no small fervour. On this it was no longer
enthusiasm, but utter frenzy ; they crowded round
me, they pressed my hands, they showered thanks
upon me ; I was the greatest tragedijm in the
world, and of all time past and future — and so on
for a good quarter of an hour.

' But the best things have an end, and the hour
came for me to take my leave. I ellcctcd this
with the same queenly dignity as 1 had managed

17—2

260 RACHEL

my arrival, reconducted even to the grand staircase
by the same grand duke, who was very gallant,
but maintained at the same time all ceremonious
respect. Then appeared the gorgeous footmen in
powder, one of them carrying my pelisse. 1 put it
on, and was escorted by them to my carriage, which
was surrounded by other footmen carrying torches
to illuminate my departure.'

Triumphant, however, as in one point of view
was Rachel's visit to Russia, it had its heavy draw-
backs. She returned to Paris more shaken than
ever in health, and the failure in vigour was quickly
perceived when she resumed her place upon the
stage there. The public, moreover, were out of
humour with her for having forsaken them so long
— she had been away a year — and they marked
their displeasure by leaving her to play to com-
paratively empty houses. A new piece, 'Rose-
monde,' in which she sustained the principal part,
was coldly received, and an epigram of the day tells
the tale both of her broken health and of the eclipse
of her popularity :

' Pourquoi done nomme-t-on ce drame Rosemonde ?
Je n'y vols plus de rose et n^y vols pas de monde.""

The ' Czarine,' written for her by Scribe — the
last of the characters created, as the phrase is, by
Rachel — in the following year, was not more
successful. The wrong she had done to her body
and to her great natural gifts was now to be

FAILING HEALTH 261

avenged. ' Glory,' she writes to a friend even in
1854, ' is very pleasant, but its value is greatly
lowered in my eyes, since I have been made to pay
so dearly for it.' Years before she had been warned.
In 1847 she had written, ' I have had great success,
but how ? At the expense of my health, of my
hfe ! This intoxication with which an admiring
public inspires me, passes into my veins and burns
them up.' But this alone would not have wrought
the havoc which by 1855 was visible in her person
and in her general powers. Things had come to a
serious pass with her, when in that year she wrote
to M. Emile de Girardin :

' Houssaye told me it was he who gave you the
little Louis XV. watch, which you have arranged
so daintily by replacing the glass, through which
one could see the entrails of the beast, by the
enamel in which tliey have had your humble
servant baked. I think, and so does Sarah, the
lower part of my face too long. But enamels
{emails) or rather anmtx — for everywhere there are
dcs numx — cannot be corrected once tliey have
gone through the fire. In any case I tlunk it is
a thing not to be worn except after my death.
I am so shaky that perhaps this is not very far
off. If Madame de Girardin would write for me
the part of some consumptive historical personage,
if such there be— for I dcliglit in a part with a
name to it -I believe 1 sliould play it well, and in
a way to draw tears, for I should shed them myscll"
It is all very fine to tell me this is only my nerves ;
I feel very surely there is a screw loose somewhere.
We spoke of the watch ; when one turns the key

•262 RACHEL

too strongly, something goes crack 1 I often feel
something go crack within me when 1 screw my-
self up to act. The day before yesterday, in
"' Horace," when I was giving Maiibant his cue, I
felt this crack. Yes, my friend, I cracked. This
quite entre nous^ because of my mother and the
boys.'

Conscious though she was of this perilous state
of health, Rachel was still so bent on making one
more grand effort to augment her fortune, that she
entered upon an engagement to play for six months
in the United States. After performing all her
great classical parts in Paris during the summer,
she gave seven representations in London, and
sailed on August 11 from Southampton for New
York. Her success, however, fell far short of what
she had anticipated. Corneille and Racine were
not attractive to American audiences, and although
she supplemented them with ' Adrienne Lecouv-
reur,' ' Lady Tartufe,' and ' Angelo,' she did not
establish any hold upon the public. In the course
of forty-two representations the total receipts were
a httle over £27,000, of which Rachel's share was
about half — a very handsome return, but most dis-
appointing to Rachel, who had counted on gains
even beyond those which Jenny Lind had shortly
before been making across the Atlantic. So feeble
was the impression she produced, that it is quite
certain Rachel would have lost money had the
engagement gone on. But her progress was cut

NEARING THE END 263

short by a bad cold, followed by such an aggrava-
tion of her pulmonary weakness, that she was
compelled to return to Europe at the end of
January, 185G. To be back with those she loved,
and with whom she felt her stay could not be long,
was all her wish. ' J'ai porte mon nom aussi loin
que j'ai pu,' she writes from Havannah (January 7,
1856), 'et je rapporte mon cceur a ceux qui
Taiment.'

Xext \vTinter was spent in Egypt, with no abate-
ment of tlie fatal symptoms. She returned to
France, feeling that her work in life was done,
and that she would be ' doomed to go in company
with pain' for whatever term of life might be
vouchsafed her. In October, 1857, she left Paris
for Cannet, two miles from Cannes, where the
father of M. Victorien Sardou had placed his villa
at her disposal. Before quitting Paris she wrote
to her friend and fellow-worker, Augustine Brohan:
' Patience and resignation have become my motto.
I am grateful to you, dear INldlle. Brohan,
for the kind interest you express ; but let me
assure you, God alone can do anything for me ! I
start almost immediately for the Soutli, and hope
its pure and warm air will ease my pains a little.'
Very touching are tlie words of a letter to another
friend, written at the same time :

' It sometimes seems as though night were
settling down suddenly upon mc, and I feel a kiiui

264 RACHEL

of great void in my head and in my understanding.
Everything is extinguished all at once, and your
Rachel is left the merest wreck. Ah, poor me !
That Die of which I was so proud — too proud,
perhaps. Behold it to-day, so enfeebled that
scarce anything of it is left. . . . Adieu, my
friend. This letter will perhaps be the last. You
who have known Rachel so brilliant, who have
seen her in her luxury and her splendour, who
have so often applauded her in her triumphs, what
difficulty would you not have in recognising her
to-day in the species of fleshless spectre which she
has become, and which she carries about with her
unceasingly !'

There could have been little in the solitary villa,
away from all that had hitherto given zest to
Rachel's life, to support her spirits in her long
hours of pain. Such, at least, is the impression
made by its now sad and somewhat neglected
aspect on those who make a pilgrimage to the
spot in memory of the great artist. There must
have been something in the house more attractive
than its exterior gives promise of, if we may judge
from Matthew Arnold's fine sonnet :

' Unto a lonely villa in a dell
Above the fragrant warm Provencal shore,
The dying Rachel in a chair they bore
Up the steep pine-plumed paths of the Estrelle,
And laid her in a stately room, where fell
The shadow of a marble Muse of yore, —
The rose-crowned queen of legendary lore,
Polymnia — full on lier death-bed. 'Twas well !

DYING AT CANNET 265

The fret and misery of our northern towns,
In this her life's last day, our poor, our pain,
Our jangle of false wits, our cliinate''s frowns.
Do for this radiant Greek -souled artist cease ;
Sole object of her dying eyes remain
The beauty and the glorious art of Greece/*

As they bore her up those ' steep pine-plumed
paths ' — pine-plumed, alas ! no more — not all the
beauty of the islanded bay or of the shifting lights
upon the hills that enclose it could have reconciled
her restless spirit to its severance from the scenes
of her triumphs and of her ambition. She saw
too clearly that the end of a life in which the
nerves had all along been kept under an unwhole-
some strain was not far off. The mild air of the
South somewhat lightened her pains, but could not
arrest the disease. Many sad thoughts of powers

* In one of Mr. Arnokrs note-books there is an account
of RachePs last days, which was, no doubt, before him when
he wrote this sonnet. ' Cannet,' he writes, ' is a village of
very difficult access. The road to it from Cannes is so diffi-
cult that horses and carriages cannot pass, but the visitor has
to be carried through the ravines and valleys. The house is
spacious, beautifully situated in an orange grove, and well
guarded from the wind, ... In the bedchamber — a spacious
one, with hiiih snow-white walls, adorned with friezes and
sculptures in the antique style — the bed was also white, and
seemed carved of stone. At the foot of the bed was u statue
of Polyhymnia, wearing on its marble features an expression
of intense sadness. Attired in long, swee})ing robes, that had
a funereal aspect, she leaned on a pedestal that resembled a
tomb."" In such surroundings there was little to cheer her in
her agonies of pain.

266 RACHEL

wasted and unworthy aims pursued must have
darkened the soHtary hours when she was face to
face with those questionings of the spirit that will
not be put by. Her art, and all it might have
been to her, were among her other thoughts.
How much greater glory might she not have
achieved, to how much higher account might she
not have turned her gifts, how much more might
she not have done to elevate and refine her
audiences, had she nourished to the last the high
aspirations of her youth ? Very full of significance
is what she said to her sister Sarah, who attended
her death-bed : ' Oh. Sarah, I have been thinking of
" Polyeucte " all night. If you only knew what new,
what magnificent effects I have conceived ! In study-
ing, take my word for it, declamation and gesture
are of little avail ; you have to think, to weep !'*

* M. Legouve, happening to be in Cannes at the time,
went to see Rachel. ' I was told/ he writes, ' that her days
were spent in those alternate periods of illusion and sombre
clairvoyance which are the invariable symptoms of organic
disease. " For six hours a day I am full of hope ; during the
rest I am plunged in despair." ' He then describes somewhat
cruelly the great actress as posing in her suffering for effect.
' Mdlle. Rachel felt that her poses as a young invalid were
elegant to a degree ; she looked upon herself as a beautiful
statue personifying " Grief."" . . . Three days later she was
dead. . . . The reader will remember her rending sobs at the
rehearsal of Adrienne, her fear of dying young' (see Note,
p. 252, antea), ' and the sad phrase, " Soon there will be
nothing left of what was Rachel !" She was mistaken.
Something does remain of her — the halo round her name."

HER DEATH 267

Rachel died upon January 3, 1858, conscious to
the end. She was fortified in her last moments
by the very impressive ceremonial of the Jewish
Church, of which she w^as a stanch adherent, and
died in the humble hope of a blessed immortality.
As we turn away from the contemplation of a fine
career, so sadly and prematurely closed, let us think
gently of Rachel's faults and failings, due greatly,
beyond all doubt, to the unfavourable circum-
stances of her life, and the absence of that early
moral training by which she might have been
moulded into a nobler womanhood. Pauvre Rachel!

As an artist, the w^ant of that moral element
prevented her from rising to the highest level.
Had slie possessed it, she must have gone on
advancing in excellence to the last. But this she
did not do. Even in such parts as Phedre and
Hermione she went back instead of forward. Im-
personations that used to be instinct with life
became hard and formal, 'i'hey were still beautiful
as studies of liistrionic skill, but the soul had gone
out of tliem. ^A low moral nature — and such
assuredly was Rachel's — will always be felt through
an artist's work, disguise it how he will, for, as Sir
Thomas Browne says, ' The brow often speaks
true, eyes liave tongues, and tlie countenance pro-
claims the lieart and inclinations'; and, as we have
already said, it slione tlirough the acting of Rachel
whenever the part was one in whicli the individu-
ality of the woman came into play.

268 RACHEL

' In thcat wonderful actress Rachel,' JNIrs. Fanny
Kemble writes in her ' Records of Later Life,
' whose face and figure, under the transforming
influence of her consiunmate dramatic art, were
the perfect interpreters of her perfect dramatic
conception, an ignoble low-lived expression occa-
sionally startled and dismayed one — the outward
and visible sign of the inward and visible disgrace,
which made it possible for one of her literary
countrymen and warmest admirers to say that she
was adorable, because she was so " delicieusenient
canaille "- — Emilie, Camille, Esther, Pauline- — such
a " delightful blackguard." '

It was this which made her range so limited.
Attired in classical costume, and restricted to a
style of action which masked that natural deport-
ment which is ever eloquent of character, her hard
and unsympathetic nature was for the time lost to
view, and the eye was riveted by motions, graceful,
stately, passionate, or eager, and the ear thrilled by
the varied cadences, the thrilling intensity, the
passionate high tones of her beautiful voice. But
when her parts approached nearer to common life,
when the emotions became more complex and less
dignified, the want was quickly felt. If, instead of
Corneille and Racine, Rachel had been called upon
to illustrate Shakespeare, with all the variety of
inflection and subtlety of development which his
heroines demand in the performer, she must, we
believe, have utterly failed. We in England
thought too little of this — and it is a mistake
which we have made not in her case alone — in our

LIISIIT OF HER POWERS 269

admiration of a style which, to us, was new and
only half understood, and we placed her on a
pinnacle above our own actresses higher than her
deserts. Matthew Arnold shared this mistaken
impression when he wrote of her :

* Ah ! not the radiant spirit of Greece alone
She had — one power, which made her breast its home !
In her, like us, there clashed contending powers,
Germany, France, Christ, Moses, Athens, Rome.
The strife, the mixture in her soul, are ours ;
Her genius and her glory are her own.'

Had he known more than he did of the dramatic
art, of which his knowledge was, in fact, most
limited, had he seen more of Rachel on the stage
than he did, he could not have failed to see that
this variety of suggestion and of style for which, if
his words mean anything, they give her credit was
not justified. It could have made itself felt only
through a much higher and more widely sympathetic
nature than fell to the lot of this Jewess of the Jews.
We fell into the same mistake, and less excusably,
in the case of Ristori, an artist of powers in every
way inferior. The Parisians, wiser than ourselves,
found out their mistake in this respect many years
ago, so soon as they saw Ristori in Lady ISIacbcth.*

* This lady opened the eyes of the English public at Drury
Lane to the same fact, by playing this character in English.
A trial of the public patience so ill-advised and disastrous
has rarely been witnessed. It served, however, to show, even
to the uncritical, how much of Madame llistori's success was
due, not to truth or refined art, but to mere technical artifice.

270 RACHEL

Kachel was too accomplished an artist, and knew the
limits of her own powers too well, ever to risk her
reputation by subjecting it to such a test. She was
essentially a declamatory actress ; she depended
but little on the emotions of the scene ; she cared
not at all how she was acted up to. She could not
listen well — in her later days, at least, however
true it may have been that in her early days
Mdlle. Mars gave her credit for excellence in this
respect. She did not kindle by conflict with the
other characters. Nothing, to our mind, more
clearly indicates the actress of a grade not certainly
the highest.

The classical French drama demands this power
less than our own, but it does demand it in some
degree. To excel on our stage, however, it is
indispensable that the actress should possess the
power of kindling, and, as she kindles, of rising,
naturally and continuously, through the gradations
of emotion and passion, which our more complex
dramatic situations demand, and of sustaining these,
so as to retain her hold upon the audience after the
voice has ceased to speak. But to do this some-
thing more than the accomplishment of art is
necessary, and this something is a deep and sincere
sensibility, and a moral nature which answers in-
stinctively to the call of the nobler feelings that
constitute the materials of tragedy, and also of
comedy of the highest kind. It is easy to see that
Rachel, with her lack of high intellectual culture,

WHERE SHE FAILED 271

and her undisciplined moral nature, could never
have met the demands of the Shakespearian drama.
Nor, seeing what she was as a woman, how little
she possessed of the finer and more tender graces
of her sex, can we wonder that she failed, as she
did, in parts in which Mars or Duchesnois had
succeeded, and erred so frequently in accepting
others from which true taste and right womanly-
feeling would have made her recoil ?

BAKON STOCKMAE

If reputation always followed desert, the question
'Who was Baron Stockmar?' would not be so
common as it is in general society. His story is
unique of its kind. In every sense a remarkable
man— remarkable in his gifts, in his career, in the
extent and importance of his influence upon leading
men and great events — he was in nothing more
remarkable than in that stern self-suppression which
was content with the accomplishment of the noble
aims to which the whole powers of a long life were
devoted, without a thought of the personal fame
which with most men is the chief incentive to high
and sustained effort, and which, if it be an infirmity,
is at least the infirmity of noble minds. With
every quality to have made himself acknowledged
throughout Europe as among the ablest diploma-
tists and statesmen of his time, he preferred to keep
himself in the background, leading what one of his
friends called ' an anonymous and subterranean
life,' and to let others have all the credit of making
many a successful move in the great game of politics,
which was, in fact, inspired by himself. Gifted with

272

UNAMBITIOUS GREATNESS 273

the intuition of true political genius — at once acute
and comprehensive in his views — he was not more
switt to read afar off with the prescience of the philo-
sophic observer the signs of the coming changes
— pohticah social, and religious — of the period of
transition through which we have for some time
been passing, than prompt to grapple them with all
the practical sagacity of the man of action. Pos-
sessing courage and tact equal to every emergency,
and with opportunities to have gone to the front,
had such been his ambition, Stockmar was certainly
one of ' the singular few ' of whom Van Artevelde,
in Sir Henry Taylor's drama, speaks :

' Who, gifted with predominating powers,
Bear yet a temperate will, and keep the peace/

And if in any case the truth is to be admitted of
the seeming paradox, to which these lines are the
prelude, that ' the world knows nothing of its
greatest men,' it would surely be in that of Baron
Stockmar. For his is not the case of the men of
wliom this is generally asserted— ^men who have
made a gi-eat impression upon tlieir own circle by
some exceptional brilliancy of gifts or energy
of character, but wlio have been debaned from a
practical career by early death or other dominating
causes. Of these it must always be doubtful
whether they would have answered to the hopes of
their admirers, or have turned out little better than
' the ordinary of Nature's sale-work, as so many

274 BARON STOCKMAR

promising men constantly do. But of Stockmar it
could never be said, as it may be said of these,
' Consensu omnium capax imperii, nisi imperasset'
His genius, on the contrary, was never more con-
spicuous than when put to the severest test. It
was not only pre-eminently practical, but it rose to
difficulties with an elasticity which no obstacle
could daunt, and a coolness of judgment which no
contingency could surprise.

Working as he did through others, the full extent
of Europe's debt to him can never be wholly known,
and of not a little that is known it would be prema-
ture even now to speak. But this much at least is
certain, that, wherever he had power, it was used to
advance the welfare and happiness of nations. The
bosom friend and counsellor of the heads of the
Royal Houses of Belgium and England, his influ-
ence with them was due not to his personal love-
ableness or social qualities, great as these were, still
less to the blandishments of the courtier, which his
Princes equally with himself would have despised,
but to the skill and persistency with which he
evoked all that was best in their own natures (in
which his own nobleness happily found a kindred
response), and impressed them with the paramount
duty, imposed upon them by their position, of using
it not for personal or dynastic purposes, but to
make their subjects better, happier, wiser, and
nobler in themselves, as well as the founders of a
greater future for their successors. Europe is now

HIS HUMORIST MOTHER 275

reaping, in many ways, the fi'uits of his forethought
and strenuous endeavour. It was no more than
Stockmar's due that a cenotaph should be reared to
his memory, as it was, above his gi-ave at Coburg,
* by his friends in the reigning Houses of Belgium,
Coburg, England, and Prussia.' Never was tribute
more thoroughly deserved, nor, we believe, more
sincerely and lovingly rendered. But it is not alone
by these friends that Stockmar's name should be
held in honoured remembrance. It is one which
Belgium, England, and Germany, whose welfare
was at once the dream and practical study of his
life, should not willingly let die.

Christian Friedrich Stockmar was born at Coburg
on August 28, 1787. His father, a man of culture
and literary tastes, and some independent means,
who held a small magisterial office at Rodach, a
little town between Coburg and Hildburghausen,
died suddenly, when Stockmar was still young.
From his mother lie seems to have inherited the
combination of humour with strong practical sense
which formed a leading feature of his character.
Her shrewd judgments on men and things were
frequently clothed in language which only wanted
the stamp of general use to become proxerbial.
One of these, ' The Almighty takes care not to let
the cow's tail gi*ow too long,' was often in King
Leopold's mouth, in times of domestic or political
perplexity. Her thoughts in conversation ran
naturally into quaint shapes, and in this her son

18—2

270 BARON STOCKMAR

resembled her closely. In one of his letters about
the coup d'etat of December, 1851, he gives a good
illustration of this peculiarity. ' My mother,' he
writes, ' would have said, " Just try to cobble out
of that a verse that will clink. If you manage to
make the rhymes fit, you have my leave to bake
yourself a cake of rusty nails and aqua vitae." A
clever, good woman,' he adds, ' with more practical
sense in her little finger than Nicholas, Louis Napo-
leon, Schwarzenberg, and Manteuffel had in their
whole heads.' It is recorded of himself as a boy
that he was of an eager, sanguine temperament ;
quick to observe, fond of fun, with a ready talent
for characterizing men and things by apt humorous
nicknames, and not indisposed for a mad prank
when occasion served. He early showed a love for
field sports, and he had turned sixty before he laid
aside his gun.

After completing the usual curriculum at the
Coburg Gymnasium, he spent the five years between
1805 and 1810 at the Universities of Wiirzburg,
Erlangen, and Jena, in the study of medicine. To
his professional training in the study and practice
of physic he was indebted for the habit of exact
observation, which is never misled into mistaking
effects for causes, and which divines what is essential,
what merely incidental, as well as for the patient
courage which seeks by the removal of disturbing
agencies to give full scope to Nature, and to restore
her normal and healthy action, rather than by

HTS GIFT OF DIAGNOSIS 277

active remedies to give apparent relief, at the risk
too often of only aggravating the mischief which
they profess to cure. It is in this gift of diagnosis
that the genius of the gTcat physician lies, and
Stockmar appears to have possessed it in a high
desfree. The habit of mind which his medical
studies induced was of infinite value to him in later
life, when dealing with social and political pheno-
mena, in the power which it gave him 'of pene-
trating,' as his friend Carl Friedrich Meyer has
said,* ' at a glance, from single expressions and
acts, the whole man, or the whole position of
things, and, after this diagnosis, of straightway
settling his own line of action.' Stockmar felt this
strongly himself. Writing in 1858 about the calls
made upon his sagacity and judgment by the dis-
tinguished personages who had for so many years
leant upon his confidential counsels, he says : ' It
was a happy hit to have originally studied medicine;
without the knowledge, without the psychological
and physiological insiglit thereby obtained, my
sdvoir fdire must often have gone a-begging.' On
Friedrich Riickert, tlie p6et, who made his ac-
quaintance at W'iirzberg, he left the impression of
being a grave, industrious young man, of somewhat
retiring and dignified manners.' Tlie strong
humorous element in liis chjiracter appears at that

* In an admirable memoir, whicli a])()t'are(l in the J^rit.s'-
fflsrhe Jahrhiic/icr, October, IMG.'i. Herr Meyer was formally
yeai-s the libraiian and secretary of the late Piince Consort.

278 BARON STOCKMAR

time not to have struck the poet, who in the Ufe-
long friendship which was afterwards formed be-
tween them had good reason to know it ; but if
their college acquaintance was, as it seems to have
been, slight, this was no more than natural. The
great humorist is ever sensitive and shy. Intensely
sympathetic himself, he must be sure of sympathy
before he lets out his heart in the fun, steeped in
feeling, in which thoughts often the saddest and
emotions the most painful sometimes find relief.

The time, moreover, was not one to inspire
cheerfulness in a man who felt strongly, and who
loved his country passionately, as Stockmar did.
His student's years fell within the period of
Germany's deepest degradation. The petty selfish-
ness of the smaller principalities, the shame of her
defeats, the grinding domination of Napoleon in
his expressed determination ' to cut the wings of
the Prussians so closely as to preclude the possi-
bility of their ever again disturbing the French,'*
the pitiful internal divisions which strengthened
the invader's hands, were enough to banish smiles

* ' These haughty Prussians," said Napoleon, speaking to a
Russian officer, 'low as they are brought, still carry them-
selves very high. They breathe nothing but vengeance against
France, and desire peace only as a means, in time, of executing
it ; but," he added with great emphasis, ' they deceive them-
selves greatly if they expect to rise again to the height of a
great power ; for their wings shall now be so closely cut as to
preclude all possibility of their ever again disturbing us.' —
' Diaries and Letters of Sir George Jackson,' vol. ii., p. 167.

WISE HOPEFULXESS 279

from the lips of the most heedless. These things
sank deep into Stoekmar's heart, and inspired it
with that yearning for the unity and greatness of
the Fatherland which burned within it to the last.

These were the days when the assassination of
Napoleon was freely talked of among the hot
spirits of the Universities as the one specific for
their country's wrongs. ' This is the talk of boys ;
have done with it,' said an old Prussian officer once
when Stockmar was present. ' Whoever knows
the world knows that the French supremacy
cannot last ; put your trust in the natural course of
events.' The words made a deep impression upon
Stockmar. Tliey breathed that confidence in the
ultimate justice of Providence ; they rested on the
conviction that it is to themselves a people must
look if they are to become great and a power
among the nations, which were ever afterwards
abiding principles with him. The day of emanci-
pation was far off, and much had to be done and
undergone before it came. But not alone in this
instance, but in reference to many otlier things,
which, though desirable, seemed for a time hope-
less, Stockmar never bated in heart and hope.
His axiom was :

* Wait ; my faith is large in time,
And that which shapes it to some perfect end.'

At the end of 1810 Stockmar returned to Coburg
and commenced the practice of physic under tlic

280 BARON STOCKMAR

guidance of his uncle, Dr. Sommer. He soon
became conspicuous for his skill in diagnosis, and
in 1812 he received the official appointment of
Stadt-und-Land-Phijsiciis, in which capacity he
had to organize and superintend a military hospital
in Coburg. It was rapidly filled, at first with the
sick and wounded of the French, and afterwards
with Russians. The hospital typhus, following in
the wake of the armies, established itself there with
such virulence that the other physicians deserted
the hospital in alarm, and the sole charge of it
devolved upon Stockmar and an old surgeon.
Contrary to the practice, then universal, but now
discarded, of shutting out fresh air from fever
patients as much as possible, he flung open the
doors and windows of the wards, even in severe
weather, and with the best results. But at the end
of more than a year of unremitting toil, he was
himself struck down by the illness in its worse
form. After hovering for three weeks between
life and death, he rallied, and so quickly that he
was able to march, in January, 1814, with the
Ducal Saxon Contingent to the Rhine as Chief
Physician. On his arrival at Mayence he was
appointed Staff Physician of the Fifth German
Army Corps to the hospitals which had been estab-
lished under the great Stein's directions in Mayence,
Oppenheim, Guntersblum, and AVorms. His in-
troduction to Stein was somewhat of the roughest.
Having no wounded of his own, Stockmar admitted

AS CHIEF PHYSICIAN 281

wounded French prisoners into the hospital. This
was no more than his duty. But all at once came
an unexpected rush of German wounded. Stein,
thinking only of the fact that tliere was no room
for them, broke into a towering rage. An inter-
change of strong language ensued, in which Stock-
mar, according to report, proved fully a match for
the great Baron. He at no time wanted courage,
and, though recognising fully the greatness of his
adversary, it was characteristic of the man that,
being in the right, he should, young as he was,
maintain his position without flinching.

At the close of the campaign of 1815 Stockmar
resumed his official post as physician at Coburg.
But here he was not long to remain. He had
during the preceding years come under the notice
of Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, who had then
formed so high an opinion of him that, as soon as
his marriage with the Princess Charlotte was defi-
nitely arranged, he offisred him the appointment
of physician to his person {Leibarzt). The
marriage was to take place on May 2, 181G, and
on March 29 Stockmar landed at Do\er, in
obedience to the Prince's summons. Halting at
Rochester on the 30th, as liis diary records, the
roads being dangerous from highwaymen after
dark (he must liave tiiouglit of Gadshill and
Prince Hal), lie reached London on the 31st.
' The country,' lie adds, ' tlie houses, their aiTange-
ments, everything — at least in the neighbourhood

282 BARON STOCKMAR

of London — pleased me extremely ; and, in fact,
they put me into such spirits, that 1 often said
to myself, " Here you cannot fail to be happy ;
here it is impossible for you to be ill."' The
words were prophetic. In England he found the
chief happiness of his after-life, and its climate
agreed well with a constitution never strong, and
liable to serious intestinal disturbances. These,
even in his student years, had checked his energies
and crippled the elasticity of his nature, clouding
its natural gaiety and enthusiasm with the de-
pression of hypochondria. This was aggravated
during many years of his life by great weakness
of the eyes. How much he suffered may be seen
by the following allusion in one of Riickert's
poetical epistles addressed to him :

' Friend, round whose dim eyes hypochondria''s snakefolds so
closely
Coil, that thy spirit is vexed, dreaming of blindness to be."

The danger to his eyes passed away, not so the
shadows of his besetting malady — a malady not
the less poignant that its gloomy presagings are
dissipated by the facts of life, and that despondency
and self-distrust are often succeeded, when the
pressure on the nervous system is removed, by
spirits the most joyous, and by a very exuberance
of power. Those who were most in contact
with Stockmar in his later years would often smile
at what seemed in him the mere fancies of the

PRONE TO MELANCHOLY 283

Malade Imaginaire, when they contrasted his com-
plaints of weakness with the vigour and versatility
of which he was at that very time a striking
example, and when they saw him living on into
a good old age amid the gloomiest anticipations of
approaching death. But tliat he suffered acutely
during these chronic attacks there can be no
doubt ; and knowing well, as so skilful a patholo-
gist could not fail to know, the organic disease
from which they proceeded — a disease demon-
strated in his case by a post-mortem examination
— his apprehensions were only too well justified.

For some time after his arrival in England
Stockmar was greatly out of health. His position
in Prince Leopold's household in the first months,
with little to do in his medical capacity, and
mixing little in society, threw him upon his own
resources for amusement. ' Surrounded by the
tumult of the fashionable world,' he writes
(October, 1817), 'I am solitary, often alone for
days together, my books my companions, my
friends, my sweethearts ' — not the best condition
of things for a man prone to hypochondria, and
with faculties of the most various kind crying out
for active occupation. It seems, indeed, to have
given a shade of asperity to the sketclies with
which at this time he filled his diary of the royal
and otlier personages with whom lie was brought
into contact. Many of these are far from flatter-
ing. But there can be no question as to the

284 BARON S POCKMAR

artistic subtlety of touch which they display.
Little, no doubt, did the distinguished objects of
some of his sketches dream with what often un-
complimentary accuracy their mental and physical
features were being photographed by the luminous
bro\^^l eyes of the somewhat reserved doctor of
the princely household. Here is tlie Grand Duke
Nicholas, the future Czar, then only twenty, as
he appeared at Claremont in November, 1816,
sketched from the opposite side of the dinner-
table, where he sat between tlie Princess Charlotte
and the Duchess of York :

' He is an extraordinarily handsome, winning
young fellow, taller than Leopold, without being
thin, and straight as a pine. His face as youthful
as Leopold's, the features extremely regular, the
forehead handsome and open, eyebrows finely
arched, nose pecuharly handsome, mouth small
and well -shaped, and chin finely chiselled. . . .
His deportment is animated, free from constraint
and stiffness, and yet very dignified. He speaks
French fluently and well, accompanying what he
says with gestures not unbecoming. If everything
he said was not marked by ability, it was, at any
rate, extremely pleasant, and he seems to have
a decided talent for saying pretty tilings to women
{Courmaclien). When he wants, in tlie course of
conversation, to give special emphasis to any
remark, he shrugs his shoulders, and casts up his
eyes to heaven in rather an affected way. There
is an air of great self-reliance about him, but at the
same time a manifest absence of pretension.

' He did not pay special attention to the Princess,
who turned to address him oftener than he did to

LIFE AT CLAREMONT 285

her. He ate very moderately for his age, and
drank nothing but water. \Vhen the Countess
Lieven played the piano after dinner he kissed her
hand, which struck the Englisli ladies as extremely
odd, but decidedly desirable. Mrs. Campbell could
find no end of praise for him : ' What an amiable
creature ! He is devilish handsome ! He will be
the handsomest man in Europe.' Next morning
the Russians left the house. I was told that at
bedtime a leathern sack, stuffed with hay, was
placed in the stable for the Grand Duke by his
people, and that he always slept on this. Our
Englishmen pronounced this affectation.'*

The JNIrs. Campbell whose emphatic admiration
of the Grand Duke found expression in the phrase
then as common as it would now be startling in
a drawing-room was the Princess Charlotte's Bed-
chamber AVoman and Privy Purse. She must
have been a stirring element in the small house-
hold at Claremont, and her portrait, as drawn by
Stockmar, is admirable as a piece of character-
painting :

'A little spare woman of five -and -forty, a
widow, sharp and angular in every feature and
movement, pretentious, because she was once
young and pretty, and very intelligent, and yet
not insufferably pretentious, just because she is

* This wa.s the Emperoi"'s habit through life. When he
visited Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle in 18i4, the first
thing his valets did was to send to the royal stables for
bundles of fresh straw to stuff" the leathern wallet which
formed the mattress of the camj) bed on which he always
slept.

286 BARON STOCKMAR

clever. Extremely well-informed and exact, she
manages the Princess's correspondence and accounts
with the greatest ease, and to perfect satisfaction.
In our social circle she sets herself in opposition to
everything she sees and hears, and encounters what-
ever people either say or do with such a consistent
resistance, that we are able to calculate with
certainty beforehand her answer to our questions.
Then, too, this spirit of contradiction so com-
pletely masters her, that it is impossible for her
to remain true to a side, and, consequently, she is
now of the Court party, now of the Ministerial,
now of the Opposition, now of the popular faction,
just as she happens or not to have somebody to
contradict. As a rule, she is without a grain of
mercy, and then her language is cuttingly severe.
Nevertheless, even she has her hiuiian days at
times, on which she is acquiescent — nay, even lays
down her arms, when her shaft has struck home
and rankles. Some light is thrown upon a character
so strange, when we hear that she has had bitter
experiences of mankind, and was kept alive on
brandy-and-water when ill during a seven months'
voyage. This lady is at present the only regular
female member of our circle, and we therefore
concede to her, as the representative of her sex,
a homage half spontaneous, half enforced.'

The Claremont household was, in other respects,
very pleasantly constituted. It consisted, besides
Mrs. Campbell, of Baron Hardenbroek, the Prince's
Adjutant and Equerry, Colonel Addenbrooke, and
Sir Robert Gardiner. Of all these Stockmar
speaks in his letters of the time with warm regard,
and the last of them continued through life to be
one of his most devoted friends. But what, above

THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE 287

all, reconciled Stockmar to his position was his
attachment to the Prince and Princess — an attach-
ment which was met by equal confidence and
regard on their part — and by the delight with
which he watched their happiness, and the steady
development of those qiiahties of heart and head
which promised so fair a future for themselves and
for England. And, indeed, nothing can be more
charming than the glimpses which Stockmar's
letters and diary afford of that happy interior,
and of the chief actors in it, on which the eyes
of England were at that time fixed with an
intensity only to be understood by those who
have heard it spoken of by contemporaries. The
story of the Princess's ill-treatment by her father,
the sympathy with her position in relation to a
mother whom she loved but could not respect, her
spirited rupture of a betrothal which had been
forced upon her with the Prince of Orange, rather
than consent to quit the shores of England, had
touched every heart. The delight was therefore
universal to see her wedded to the Prince of her
choice, who, although still only twenty-five, had
already distinguished himself both as a soldier and
a diplomatist. The unattractive person and rough-
and-ready manners of the l*rince of Orange were
not forgotten, in contrast with the distinguislied
bearing and presence of one who, as Napoleon said
of him at St. Helena, was the handsomest man
whom he saw at the Tuileries in 1800-1807.

288 BARON STOCKINIAR

Indeed, his manly beauty was of so high an order
tliat he was selected to impersonate Jupiter at the
Court tableaiuv vivants of the Olympian deities
at Vienna in 1814. Those who had the best means
of observation spoke of him with the warmest
praise. ' Always calm, always self-possessed,' writes
Baron Hardenbroek, ' he will never be overbearing
in prosperity, and never without courage in mis-
fortune. In a word, he is a man of brains and
talent, and thoroughly good.' So early as October,
1816, Stockmar writes of him as his ' noble
master, einen inenschlichen FUrsten und filrstUchen
Menschen' — an untranslatable phrase, of especial
value in the mouth of a man who had even then
known enough of the Princes of that epoch to be
aware by how little of the element of human-
heartedness they were distinguished. Two months
later he writes of him :

* The Prince's quiet dignity, his consistency and
sound sense, create astonishment even in the
English, who are, as a rule, by no means prompt
to recognise and admire foreigners, and the ex-
clamations, " He is the most amiable man I ever
saw !" " What a complete English gentleman !"
"• He will be our hope in these dangerous times !"
are to be heard on every suitable occasion.'

There could have been no fitter mate for the
brilliant, impulsive, wayward spirit of the Princess
Charlotte, unschooled as she was by the discipline
and pure example of happy family life in those

THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE 289

habits of self-control and consideration for others
which should be the distinction of Princes. Clever,
well-informed, bright, with warm feelings, and a
disposition unspoiled even by persecutions that
might well have soured the most amiable nature,
her sincere, affectionate nature could not fail to be
moulded, under the influence of such a husband,
into something as engaging and noble in the
woman as, in despite, or perhaps even because of,
some eccentricities of demeanour, it had been in-
terestinfj in the ffirl. Stockmar's introduction to
her took place at Oatlands three days after her
mamage. It is grapliically told in a letter the
same day :

' It was in Oatlands that I first saw the Sun.
Baron Hardenbroek walked towards the breakfast-
room, I following, when all at once he made a
signal to me with his hand to stay behind : but she
had seen me, and I her. '• Aha, docteur ! Entrez !" '

Although he found her more beautiful than he
had expected, the first impression was not favour-
able. This was apparently due to a volubility of
speech and restlessness of manner for which he was
not prepared ; but that evening, he says, he liked
her better. ' Dress,' he adds, ' simple and tasteful,'
Later on (September 8, 1816), he records that he
never saw her in any dress that was not, and lie is
then writing almost in the very atmosphere of the
charm :

' The Princess hi good humour, and then it costs

19

290 BARON STOCKMAR

her little trouble to please. Her dress struck me
iis very beautiful — dark red roses in her hair, light
blue short dress, without sleeves, etc.'

He had long before this become a favourite v^ith
the Princess, and she marked her partiality openly,
even in the presence of guests of the highest dis-
tinction. No wonder, when one thinks of the rare
union of experience, thoughtfulness, and humour,
which he must have thrown into his conversation
with her ! Nor was she likely to be the less drawn
towards him, that her husband was by this time so
deeply impressed by his rare qualities as to call him
' the precious physician, both of his soul and body.'
Stockmar, on his side, loved her too well not to
watch her with a critical eye. ' The Princess,' he
writes (October 25, 1816), ' is full of movement
and vivacity, amazingly sensitive, and nervously
susceptible, and the feeling roused by the impres-
sion of the moment often determines both her con-
clusions and her conduct.' He notes at the same
time the amazing progress she has made, under her
husband's influence, in repose and self-command, and
that every day makes it more and more apparent
how thoroughly good and sound she is at heart.
The relations between herself and the Prince were
perfect. A few days previous to the letter just
quoted Stockmar writes :

' In this house reign harmony, peace, love — all
the essentials, in short, of domestic happiness. My
master is the best husband in the world, and his

THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE 291

wife has for him an amount of love which, in vast-
ness, can only be likened to the English National
Debt'

And, ten months later (August 20, 1817) :

' The married life of this pair is a rare picture of
love and fidelity. Nor does this picture ever fail to
produce a deep impression on all who see it, and
have a morsel of heart left within them.'

When the promise of an heir came to augment
this liappiness, and to gratify the yearnings of tlie
nation, it was natural that the Prince and Princess
should press upon Stockmar an appointment as one
of her physicians. To most other men the personal
honour would have been irresistible. Not so with
Stockmar. It was never his way to look only at
one side of a question, and in this instance his
sagacity did not fail him. Though not the Prin-
cess's physician, he had occasionally prescribed for
her ; but from the moment of her pregnancy he
declined to take any part in her treatment. His
reasons were unquestionably sound. His position
must of necessity have been subordinate to that of
Dr. Baillie, the Princess's physician, and the appoint-
ment of a foreigner would have been most unaccept-
able, not merely to the medical profession, but to the
nation. Had things gone well, the credit would
never have been given to him ; if, on the other
hand, they went amiss, on him the blame would
most certainly l)e cast. Nor would this blame,
probably, have rested on him alone: it could scarcely

19—2

292 BARON STOCKMAR

fail to have recoiled on the Prince himself for having
trusted to the aid of a stranger when the whole
Englisli faculty was at his disposal.

But Stockniar was no indifferent observer of the
progress of affairs. A lowering system of treat-
ment, then the fashion,* was adopted with the
Princess. Satisfied that this was all MTong, Stock-
mar, after the first three months, spoke out fully to
the Prince, and begged him to make the Princess's
physicians aware of his \'iews. These remon-
strances were apparently without avail. Stockmar
could do no more. Had it been otherwise, we
cannot but feel that no personal consideration, no
fear of violating that professional etiquette to which
many a life has been sacrificed, would have held his
hands. But although, as he says, he never appre-
hended the fearfiil result which ensued, his con-
viction as to the error in treatment was so deep,
that he refused the offer made to him by antici-
pation, flattering as it was, that he should under-
take the medical care of the Princess after her
accouchement.

• When I reflect once more upon the circum-
stances,' he says, writing two months after the
fatal issue of that event, ' I feel only too vividly

* At his very first meeting with Sir Richard Croft, the
Queen's accoucheur, Stockmar saw the fatal weakness of his
character. ' A tall, spare man,' is the entry in his diary, ' past
the prime of life — hasty, well-meaning ; seems to possess more
experience than knowledge and judgment.''

THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE 203

the gi'eatness of the danger which I escaped. Trust
me, all — ay, all — would now be rejoicing at my
interference, which could not have been of the
least avail, and the English doctors, our household
companions, friends, acquaintances, the nation, the
Prince himself, would find the cause of this seem-
ingly impossible disaster in the bungling of the
German doctor. And 1 should myself^ with my
hypochondriac tendency, have given credence to the
imputations of others, and been driven, by the
anguish inflicted from without, from self-torture to
despair.'*

The authentic story of tlie sad catastrophe was
made public for the first time from Stockmar's
diary (' Denkwiirdigkeiten aus den Papieren des
Freihernn Christian Friedrich v. Stockmar,' by his
son, Ernst Freiherr v. Stockmar ; Brunswick,
1872). At 1) p.m. on November 5, 1817, after a
protracted labour of fifty-two hours, which no
artificial means were taken to abridge, the Princess

* Sir Richard Croft was so (hivei), and shot himself at a
patient's house in February, 1818. 'I never knew anything
more horrilile than the death of poor Croft,' says Sydney
Smith, writing to Lady Mary Bennett at the time. ' What
misery the poor fellow must have suffered between the Prin-
cess's death and his own !'' On Noven)ber 7 previous, the
day after the Trincess's death, C'roft had written to Stockmar,
whose warnings must then have recurred to him with a terrible
pang : ' My mind/Is just now in a pitiable state. God grant
that neither yourself, nor anyone that is dear to you, should
ever have to suffer what 1 experience at this moment!"'
Surely J)r. Haillie was not less to blame than Croft, esj)ecially
an the error seems to have been one of treatment ])revious to,
as well as at, the actual accouchement.

294 BiVRON STOCKMAR

gave birth to a dead male child. The mother
seemed so well, that the Ministers and others who
had been sunnnoned left Claremont, believing that
all danger was past. But before they could have
reached London things had assumed a \'ery different
aspect.

' At midnight Croft came to my bedside, took
me by the hand, and said, "The Princess is
dangerously ill, the Prince alone — would I go to
him and make him aware how matters stood ?"
The Prince had not left his wife one moment for
three days, and, after the birth of the child, had
retired to rest. I found him composed about the
death of the child, and lie did not seem to view the
Princess's state with any apprehension. A quarter
of an hour later Baillie '^ent me word that he
wished me to see the Princess. I hesitated, but at
last went with him. She was suffering from spasms
of the chest and difficulty of breathing, in great
pain, and very restless, and threw herself continu-
ally from one side of the bed to the other, speaking
now to Baillie, now to Croft. Baillie said to her,
" Here comes an old fi-iend of yours." She held
out her left hand to me hastily, and pressed mine
warmly twice. I felt the pulse : it was going very
fast— the beats now strong, now feeble, now inter-
mittent. Baillie kept plying her with wine. She
said to me, " They have made me tipsy." After
this I went in and out of the room twice in about
a quarter of an hour, and then the breathing
became stertorous. I had just gone out of the
room, when she called out vehemently, " Stocky !
Stocky !" I returned ; she was quieter ; the death-
rattle continued, she turned several times upon her
face, drew up her legs, the hands grew cold, and

PRINCE LEOPOLD 295

about 2 a.m. of November 6, 1817, some five hours
after her dehvery, she was no more.'

On Stockmar devolved the task of announcing
her death to the Prince.

' I did it,' he says, ' in not very definite terms.
He felt con\'inced she was still not dead, and on
his way to her he fell into a chair. I knelt beside
him. He thought it was all a dream ; he could
not believe it. He sent me again to her to see. I
came back, and told him all was over. He now
went to the chamber of death. Kneeling down
by the bed, he kissed the cold hands, then, raising
himself up, he pressed me to him and said, " T am
now utterly forlorn ; promise you will stay with
me always !" I ga\'e the promise. Immediately
afterwards he asked me again, " Was I fully aware
of what I had promised?" I said yes; I would
never forsake him so long as I felt assured he had
confidence in me, and loved me, and that 1 could
be useful to him.'

The pledge asked and given in that terrible hour
was splendidly redeemed on the one side, while its
conditions were most loyally fulfilled on the other.
' I had no hesitation,' writes Stockmar to his sister
a few days afterwards, ' in giving a promise upon
which the Prince may perhaps set a value all his
life, or may desire to dispense with the very next
year.' ^Vll doubt on that point was, however, soon at
an end. Little, probably, had the Prince imagined,
when calling Stockmar ' the physician of his soul as
well as body ' some months before, how deep a truth
lay in his words. By his o\vn avowal, years after-

296 BARON STOCKMAR

wards, he would probably have sunk under his
bereavement, but for the support of Stockmar's wise
sympathy and fiiendship. " It was in truth a noble
friendship on both sides, cemented by the tears
which only such men weep for an affliction that, in
King Leopold's own words in 18G2 ('Reminis-
cences,' in Appendix to General Grey's ' Early
Years of the Prince Consort,' p. 389), ' destroyed
at one blow his every hope,' and took from life a
sense of happiness which he never recovered.

The shock to Stockmar himself was great, but
the necessity of thinking for the greater sufferer
acted upon him as a tonic both moral and physical.
All he saw of the Prince deepened his affection and
respect. ' The favour of Princes,' he writes some
weeks afterwards, ' is, generally speaking, not
worth a rush ; but he is in every respect an upright,
good man, and consequently an incomparable
Prince.' Leopold, in the end of November, gives
him some of his letters to the Princess before their
marriage to read, in which Stockmar finds that the
Prince ' figures with singular high-mindedness,
prudence, and goodness.' Again, on December 21,
Stockmar writes : ' He is good, every day better ;
he turns all his misery to good. His calamity has

* 'II a ete temoin des jours de mon bonheur; plus tard,
quand il a plu a la Providence de m^accabler de malheurs, que
je n'avais presque la force de supporter, il a ete mon fidele
soutien et ami' (letter by the Prince in 1824, introducing
Stockmar to an eminent statesman).

PRINCE LEOPOLD 297

made him shy of hoping much from the future ;
but that his soul will thrive, of that I can be
sworn. It wants a great deal of heart to lo\'e him
as he deserves.'

More than forty years afterwards, reading over
the letter to his sister just quoted, in which he
records his promise to the Prince, he comes upon
these words : ' I seem to exist rather to take
thought for others than for myself, and with this
destiny I am quite content.' The words struck the
old man, and they might well do so, so prophetic
were they of his future. But the comment of a
man so independent, and so austere in his estimate
of character and conduct, is such a tribute as it
has not often been the lot of Kings to earn :
' Forty long years could in no way abate the
sentiment which the Prince's disaster then led me
to express.'

After the Princess Charlotte's death Stockmar
ceased to act as the Prince's pliysician, and became
his Private Secretary and the Controller of his
household. In this capacity liis range of varied
practical gifts had a freer scope. He gave early
proof of his sagacity by persuading the Prince to
remain in England, instead of going to the Con-
tinent for change of scene, as he was urged by his
relatives and friends to do. The whole country
was plunged in grief, and Stockmar rightly urged
that good feeling and gratitude for the confidence
and sympathy of tlie nation demanded that the

298 BARON STOCKMAR

Prince should remain to mourn with it in England.
Moreover, although England no longer presented a
field for his active amljition, to England the Prince
was indebted for both fortune and position ; and
nowhere else could he either have enjoyed the same
consideration or been so well placed for availing
himself of any turn of events, which might open
a worthy career for a man still so young and of
abilities so distinguished.

From this time till 1831 Stockmar resided with
Prince Leopold in England, a residence only
broken by journeys mth the Prince to Italy,
France, and Germany, and an occasional stay in
Coburg. Stockmar married his cousin, Fanny
Somnier, there in 1821, and established a home
for his wife and children ; but he was sometimes
unable to visit it for years, and, until his seventieth
year, he did so only at irregular intervals. ' No
small sacrifice,' says his son, ' for a man of his warm
feelinsrs and strong? domestic instinct.' The Prince's
position in England was by no means an easy one,
but he maintained it with unabated popularity to
the last. For much of this he seems to have been
indebted to Stockmar.

' The prudent, genial liberality with which he
kept house,' says Meyer, in the ' Memoir ' from
which we have already quoted, ' the fine tact with
which he took up and kept a position outside of
party, his well-measured attitude in his twofold
character of German Prince and handsomely-
endowed widower of the King's daughter, would

SETTLES IN ENGLAND 299

scarcely have been maintained so well without the
counsel and assistance of his new Secretary and
Controller of the Household.'

During these years of comparative quiet Stock-
mar had the best opportunities for observing all
that was passing in Europe, both at home and
abroad. Of England and its Constitution he
made a special study. As the one constitut'onal
monarchy of the world, it had a peculiar interest
for a man of his strong liberal opinions. No man
understood better the character and temper of the
people, or foresaw more clearly the critical changes
which were impending. For him, too, as well as for
Prince Leopold, a special interest in the futin-e of
the countiy and its rulers had arisen through the
marriage of I^eopold's sister, the Princess of
I^einingen, in May, 1818, to the Duke of Kent,
and the birth of Princess Victoria in the following
JNIay. The Duke's death in January, 1820, in
circumstances of pecuniary embarrassment, threw
upon the Prince the care of the future heiress to
the throne. The happiest days of my childhood.
Queen Victoria has told us (' Early Years,' p. 392),
were .spent witli him at Claremont ; and she has
recorded on his monument in St. George's Chapel,
that to her he had been as a father through life.
Knowinii^ wliat we now know of the character of
the men, we see how natural it was that the Prince
and his far-seeing friend should spare no pains to
realize, through tlie Princess so singularly thrown

300 BARON STOCKINIAR

upon their care, such a future for the people and
monarchy ol England as, before the catastrophe of
1817, they may have dreamed of effecting upon the
succession of the Princess Charlotte to the throne.
Such a task was especially fitted to the genius of
Stockmar and his passion for working for the good
of others ; and at a later period we shall see how
zealously he seconded the efforts of his Prince
towards this noble end.

The resolution of the Great European Powers, in
1829, to create a kingdom of Greece broke the
long period of political and personal inactivity to
which Prince Leopold had been condemned, and
which could not be otherwise than irksome to a
man of his energy and ambition. The prospect of
occupying its throne, while appealing not only to
his scholarly enthusiasm, but also to a romantic
element in his character, which the calm and un-
demonstrative bearing of the man, as he was known
to the outside world, by no means prepared them
to expect, seemed to offer such opportunities for
making a name in history, that the Prince gi-asped
them with an eagerness of which his wise friend and
secretary did not approve. This led him, contrary
to Stockmar's ad\'ice, to commit the imprudence of
accepting the tender of the crown, without having
previously settled the terms, both as to territory
and finance, which on closer inquiry he found to be
indispensable, thoroughly to establish its indepen-
dence, and to rescue the affairs of the country from

PRINCE LEOPOLD 301

internal confusion. The decision ultimately come
to by the Prince, to withdraw from his promise,
when he found these terms could not be obtained,
was, as events have proved, a wise one ; but it ex-
posed him at the time to mucli obloquy and mis-
representation, gi^'ing, as it unquestionably did, a
semblance of truth to the charges of vacillation
and irresolution, which those who had intrigued
against his candidature were active in bringing
forward. Nor did the charges stop here. His
conduct, according to the Russian Ambassador,
INIatuszewicz, showed so much sinister design, so
much bad faith, that he was delighted not to see
upon the throne a man who would have betrayed
the confidence of the Powers to whom he owed it.

' What say you,' writes von Stein, ' to the be-
haviour of Prince Leopold ? It is quite in character
with the Marquis Pcu-a-peu, as George lY. called
him. Instead of surmounting the difficulties —
instead of completing the task he had begun — he
withdraws his hand cravenlike from the plough,
calculating on the contingencies likely to arise
upon the death, which cannot be distant, of King
George IV. A man of this flaccid character is
wholly unfit to grapple vigorously with life : he has
no colour.'

All this, of course, was the mere idle conjecture
of those supcrsubtle diplomatists who think it a
libel on their sagacity to accept a simple and
straightforward reason for a course of action, so long
as a remote and mysterious one can be devised.

302 BARON STOCKMAR

The absurdity of the supposition, that the decision
of the Prince was influenced by hopes of the
Enghsh regency, is so outrageous that it can now
only provoke a smile. The fact is, the Prince
would have made almost any sacrifice for such a
throne as that of Greece, could he have seen any
prospect before him but failure under the condi-
tions attached to its acceptance. For not only did
his ultimate resolution cost him intense pain at the
time, but long afterwards. When all the difficul-
ties had been overcome which attended the estab-
lishment of the Belgian monarchy, and when he
was generally looked upon as of all Kings the most
to be envied, he was haunted by regrets that his
dream in connection with the land of Homer and
Sophocles, of Pericles and Plato, had not been
realized. Greece to the last had a charm for his
imagination, in the face of which the sober hues of
Belgian life and of a Belgian sky looked cold and
unattractive. Stockmar, with a wiser appreciation,
lent no countenance to these wistful yearnings of a
spirit, in which the toil and trammels of a mono-
tonous, though busy and successful, life had been
unable to quench the fire of romance.

' As for the poesy,' he wrote in reply to some
such expression of feeling, 'which Greece would
have afforded, I set small store by it. Mortals
only see the bad side of what they have, and the
good side of what they have not. I (erein lies the
whole difference between Greece a; id Belgium ;'

PRINCE LEOPOLD 303

adding, with characteristic humour, • although it is
not to be denied that when, after a host of vexa-
tions, the first Greek King shall have succumbed,
his life may possibly furnish the poet with a splendid
subject for an epic poem.'

To think that Stockmar had no sympathy with
the poetical side of this or any similar question,
would be to do him wrong ; but his imagination,
like that of all thoroughly able men, ' had its seat
in reason, and was judicious.' Day-dreams have
their value at holiday seasons ; but where men and
States are in question, especially men in a state of
excitement, and States in the crisis of formation, the
duty of imagination is not to revel in ideal visions,
but, looking at facts as they are, to anticipate all
possible combinations, and to provide against all
possible contingencies. When, therefore, the Bel-
gians, after the revolution of 1830, offered to Prince
Leopold the sceptre of the kingdom, which their
leaders had determined to establish, Jie was not
likely, with the experience he had gained, and with
Stockmar at his side, to fall again into the mistake
of a too hasty acceptance. No urgency could
induce him to reply to the proposals of the Belgian
Congress, until they had ratified the articles known
as the ' Eighteen Articles,' which had been agreed
on by the I^ondon Conference of the Pjiu'opean
Powers. It appears that even then he had grave
misgivings, fearing that the new Belgian Constitu-
tion, from its extremely democratic character, would

304 BxVllON STOCKMxVll

not work, lie referred the matter to Stockmar.
The manner in which tlie Baron dealt with the
question is too remarkable not to be told in his
own words, as reported by Professor Neumann, of
JNIunich. The conversation during dinner one day
at the Professor's house in 1845 had turned upon
Louis Philippe's Government, and the unscrupulous
game of his advisers— how they falsified the Con-
stitution, and were likely to hurry on a fresh re-
volution.

' I have confidence in peoples as a mass,' said
Stockmar; 'they feel to the very core, if not at
once, at least after a time, who deals honourably
by them, and who tries to beguile them with mere
shams. I hold by our old-fashioned German pro-
verb, Ehrlich wdhrt am Idngsten, or, as the English
say, " Honesty is the best pohcy." This was the
keynote of everything I said, when the King desired
to have my opinion about anything. 1 will give
you an instance.

' After a careful study of the Belgian Constitu-
tion, my master doubted whether, with such laws,
a State could be governed, and liberty and order,
the two inseparable conditions of a civilized com-
munity, could be maintained. " Dear Stockmar,"
he said, " pray read over the Constitution, and tell
me your opinion." I went through the new funda-
mental law with great attention, compared the
different articles one with another, and found that,
in point of fact, the power of the Government is
very greatly restricted. But my firm reliance on
the people carried me through. " True " — it was
in something like these terms that I addressed my
intelligent master — " perfectly true ; the power of

HIS POLITICAL SAGACITY 305

the King and his Ministers is very gi-eatly Mniited
by this Constitution. Make the experiment, whether
all this liberty is compatible with order ; make the
experiment of governing in the spirit of this Con-
stitution, and do this in a thoroughly conscientious
spirit. If you then find, that with sucli a basis good
government is impossible, send, after a time, a mes-
sage to the Chambers, frankly stating your experi-
ences, and indicating the defects of the Constitution.
If you have really acted up to the best of your
knowledge and convictions, the people will assuredly
stand by you, and willingly concur in all the clianges
which are demonstrably necessary."

' King I^eopold followed my advice. You know,
Herr Professor, that no serious inconveniences have
resulted, and that in many respects Belgium stands
out as a model among European States.'

Here we see the courage and the faith of a man
made to grapple with practical difficulties, who
knows when prudence is a mistake, and when it is
true wisdom to run even a great risk for a great
end. This quality of Stockmar's mind was put to
the proof in the critical e\'cnts and difficult negotia-
tions of the next three years. He accompanied the
King to Brussels in July, 1831, where his immediate
duty was the organization of the royal establish-
ment. Neither then, however, nor at any future
time, did lie accept any official appointment in Bel-
gium, but was attached only to the King as a private
adviser and friend. Having been a member of
Leopold's English establishment, provision very
properly was made for him by one of the few pen-

20

306 BARON STOCKMAK

sions of a similar character, whicli continued to be
paid out of the provision of £50,000 settled on the
Prince upon his marriage. When he became King-
of the Belgians, Leopold placed this provision at
the disposal of the English Government, subject to
certain conditions as to the maintenance of Clare-
mont, and the payment of his English debts and
pensions, in a letter drafted by Stockmar, which
silenced by anticipation the clamours of the Dilkes
of the period, who were thus deprived of the oppor-
tunity, for which they were lying in wait, to make
capital for themselves out of the anomaly of a
foreign King receiving an income from the English
Exchequer. The arrangement of this transaction,
which was full of difficulty, was carried through by
Stockmar's tact and firmness wdth entire success.
Reasonable as the King's stipulations m ere, there
were not wanting cavillers, headed by a certain Sir
Samuel Whalley, a retired mad-doctor, who tried
to get up a Parliamentary inquiry on the subject.

' The case seems to me as clear as day,' Lord
Palmerston wrote to Stockmar in 1834, in reference
to Whalley 's notice of motion, ' and, without mean-
ing to question the omnipotence of Parliament,
which, it is well known, can do anything but turn
men into women, or women into men, I must and
shall assert, that the House of Commons has no
more right to inquire into the details of these debts
and engagements, which the King of the Belgians
considers himself bound to satisfy, before he begins
to make his payments into the Exchequer, than

LEOPOLD'S CONFIDEXTIAL AGENT 307

they have to ask Sir Samuel Whalley how he dis-
posed of the fees which his mad patients used to
pay him, before lie began to practise upon the fooHsh
constituents who have sent him to Parhament.
There can be no doubt whatever, that we must
positively resist any such inquiry ; and I am veiy
much mistaken in my estimate of the present House
of Commons, if a large majority do not concur in
scouting so untenable a proposition.'

The Whalley of that period no doubt got wind
of what he had to expect, and, having some grains
of discretion, allowed his motion to drop.

Stockmar's presence in I^ondon on this affair,
between 1831 and 1834, as the King's confidential
agent, enabled him to be of the utmost service in
clearing away the numerous difficulties which had
to be overcome before the guarantee of the inde-
pendence of Belgium by the five Great Powers was
finally secured.* The position was one of extreme
difficulty. On the one hand, Belgium, although it
had been signally defeated in the field by Holland,
and driven to shelter itself behind the bayonets of
the French, clung obstinately to certain conditions.
On the other hand, Holland, backed by the intrigues
of Talleyrand, and availing itself of the jealousies
of France entertained by England and the Northern
l*owers, was equally pertinacious in resisting. To
overcome the mutual distrust of the five Powers,
and the obstinacy of the two chief parties, was a

* See on this subject Lord Dalling's ' Life of Lord Paliner-
ston,' vol. ii., p. 23, note.

20—2

.S08 BARON STOCKMAR

problem which tasked all the ability of the distin-
guished men in whose hands the official negotia-
tions on the side of Belgium rested. Stockmar's
unofficial intervention, through his personal rela-
tions with the representatives of the different
Governments, was carried on, not only without
wounding the susceptibilities of General Goblet
and M. Van de Weyer, but with their entire
concurrence. They knew too well his value in
council and in negotiation, not to avail themselves
gladly of his assistance, and their relations with him
were those of the most complete confidence and the
warmest mutual esteem. It was his special busi-
ness, moreover, to strengthen the courage of the
King under the discouragements and difficulties,
which tried the firmness and patience of Leopold
to the uttermost. Thus, on September 10, 1831,
he writes in these terms :

' Meanwhile, I call upon your Majesty for only
this much :

' 1. Never to lose heart.

' 2. Never to relax in activity, on which your
eneinies base their hopes /'

He was, no doubt, familiar with the old charge,
that the King's character was ' flaccid,' that he
had no colour.

' 3 Not to forget the civil organization in the
jnilitcirii. The nation must see that, in the very
thick of the storm, the concerns of peace are being

BELGIUM MONARCHY 309

pushed on. That hopes of peace should be kept
ahve, even though they should come to nothing in
the end, is of the utmost importance' (p. 18G).

When at length the London Conference had
arrived at a fresh basis of settlement, known as the
' Twenty-four Articles,' some of these, as to the
limits of territory and the amount of the National
Debt to be charged on Belgium, were rejected by
that country as too favourable to Holland, and
fresh difficulties arose, of a character so serious that
the King seems even to have meditated abdication.
Here the admirable clear-sightedness and courage
of Stockmar proved themselves equal to the emer-
gency. In a letter of October 10, 1831, to the
King, urging upon him the acceptance of these
Articles unconditionally, after pointing out that
the difference between the demands of Belgium
and those conceded by the Conference was not so
important as to affect in any way the welfare of
the kingdom, he proceeds :

* The true welfare of Belgium depends at tliis
moment on a speedy peace, the establishment of a
good administration, the annihilation of parties at
home, all which are especially secured by the
prompt recognition of the independence of Belgium
by tlie whole of Euro})e. . . . Abdication ? For
I^elgium itself this would not be productive of the
smallest ad\ antage, but rather of extreme mischief.
It would either lead to a general war, with a
restoration as its conse(juence, or to the union
with France, or possibly to the partition of the

310 BARON STOCKMAR

country. To the King, moreover, resignation would
bring no one real advantage, though irritated feel-
ing may point to a different conclusion. At the
most, the King may lose groimd for a time by his
acceptance of the Twenty-four Articles — that is, he
may be less popular for a short time with the un-
reasoning, inconstant multitude. For this there is
a sovereign remedy. Let him prove himself up-
right, firm, energetic, a King of brains, and we
shall see whether, in a very short time, he is not
again the most popular monarch in Europe. On
the other hand, abdication would ruin him in the
eyes of Europe. He would appear weak, incon-
stant, short-sighted, incompetent for the task he
had undertaken. The King went to Belgium to
secure peace for Europe, and to vindicate there the
cause of Constitutional Monarchy. That is the
mission which he has pledged himself to Europe, to
the Poxvcrs, to Belgium, to fulfil- That there are
difficulties to contend with is no reason for throwing
down his ajyns. The King's task is a fine one : let
him show himself worthy of it.

' Let him not lose a moment in forcing his
Ministers to an explanation, whether they will re-
main if he accepts the Twenty-four Articles. If
they will not, let him form a new Ministry on the
spot.'

The armistice between Holland and Belgium
was on the point of expiring; the decision of the
Conference, Stockmar had assured himself, was
final ; and every other consideration, he felt, was
comparatively unimportant, when the independence,
if not the very existence, of the new kingdom was
at stake. Tlie Twenty-four Articles abridged in

CONDUCTS NEGOTIATIONS 311

not unimportant particulars the territory secured
to Belgium by the Eighteen ^Vrticles, and Leopold,
on ascending the throne, had sworn to maintain
the integrity of the kingdom as thereby defined.
His acceptance of the Twenty-four Articles, there-
fore, involved a point of honour. Stockmar, how-
ever, had this fully in view, and he was able to
relieve the scruples of the King by conveying to
him the decided opinion of Earl Grey — than whom,
as Leopold well knew, no one had a nicer sense of
what was right in such matters — that this was not
a difficulty which should cause a moment's hesi-
tation. No time was to be lost, and Stockmar
followed his letter to Brussels to enforce his views
in person. The result is well known. The King
resolved to follow his advice, as above given, to the
letter. (Jn November 1 the Twenty-four Articles
were adopted by the Chaniber of Representatives ;
and on tlie 15th the treaty, based upon them,
which secured the neutrality and independence of
the country was signed in J^ondon on behalf of
Belgium by M. Van de Weyer. The decision thus
come to was probably not uninfluenced by the
knowledge tliat, in a different event, the King
had determined to appeal to the country, 'and to
abdicate, if the new Chamber persisted in the
negative vote.'*

iMuch had yet to be done, and numberless

* Juste's ' Memoirs of Leopold I.,' vol. i., p. 197. English
edition.

312 BARON STOCKMAR

diplomatic difficulties to be surmounted, before the
new kinodom could be said to be fairly established
under the guarantee of the fiv^e Powers. At
every stage Stockmar lent his active aid — in counsel
and in negotiation ; and so essential w^as his con-
tinuous presence in I^ondon and at Brussels felt
to be, that from 1831 to 1834 he was unable
even to visit his home at Coburg. In the May of
the latter year, however, things were so far settled,
that he felt himself free to seek the repose which
the state of his health, shaken by the anxieties and
fatigues of the three previous years, greatly needed.
But from his quiet Thuringian retreat he continued
to watch M^ith wakeful eyes the progress of events
in Europe, and he was kept, by his voluminous
correspondence with the King of the Belgians and
others, fully posted up in all the political move-
ments and their secret history.

In 1836 his active services were called into play
in conducting the negotiations for the marriage of
Queen Donna Maria of Portugal with Prince
Ferdinand, the son of the younger brother of the
then reigning Duke of Coburg. Intrigues were
already on foot to secure the Queen's hand for
the Duke de Nemours. These came to nothing,
thanks to the firm attitude of the English Cabinet :
a defeat which was probably not forgotten when
Louis Philippe, to his own ultimate ruin, carried
through without scruple his wretched scheme of
the Spanish marriages. One of Stockmar's diffi[-

THE PRINCESS VICTORIA 313

ciilties was the young man's father, who, not
liking the precarious aspect of things in Portugal,
wished to stipulate for an English guarantee of
his son's provisions under the Marriage Treaty.
Stockmar had to tell him in plain language that
this was out of the question, and to remind him
of the adage, ' Nothing venture, nothing have,'
which he was just the man to do witli an energy
that admitted of no reply.

But the time had now come for Stockmars
entrance on a more serious task. The Princess
^^ictoria was approaching eighteen, her legal
majority, and in the ordinary course of events
the succession to the throne could scarcely fail to
open to her before many years. The unremitting
affection with which the young Princess had
hitherto been watclied over by her uncle was now
animated by the twofold duty of fitting her for
the brilliant but difficult position in which slie
might soon be placed, and at the same time
securing lier happiness by marriage with a Prince
whose abilities and moral strength might safely be
relied on in every emergency. No one could know
so well as Leopold liow pre-eminently qualified
liis bosom friend and adviser Stockmar was for tlie
first of these duties ; for had he not himself, under
his guidance, come to be recognised as a pattern
of constitutional monarchs ? The Princess had,
moreover, known Stockmar from childhood, and
the prospect of such a counsellor, wlien presented

314 BARON STOCKMAR

to her by iier uncle early in 1836, was naturally
welcomed with a feeling of delight. The arrange-
ment was that he should come to England in
May, 1837, in which montli the Princess would
reach majority, so as to be near her as a confi-
dential adviser and assistant. But in the meantime
Leopold had taken earnest counsel with his friend
as to the future husband of his niece. It is now
well known* that her cousin. Prince Albert, had
been from childhood designated in his own family
for this honour. The King had, therefore, kept an
anxious watch upon his nephew's boyhood and
youth, and the result, to use his own language,t
was the conviction that her union with him would
be, of all others, the best for her happiness.
Stockmar had seen less of the Prince, and it
appears from his letters in this volume, published
by his son, that he was too deeply conscious of the
greatness of the stake to accept even Leopold's
opinion on this subject.

'Albert,' he writes in 1836, 'is a fine young
fellow, well gi-own for his age, with agreeable and
valuable qualities ; and who, if things go well, may
in a few years turn out a strong, handsome man,
of a kindly, simple, yet dignified bearing. Exter-
nally, therefore, he possesses all that pleases the
sex, and at all times and in all countries must
please. It may prove, too, a lucky circumstance

* 'Early Years,' pp. 17, 84, and 213.
t Letter to the Queen of October 24, 1849. ' Early Years,'
p. 231.

PRINCE ALBERT 315

that even now he has something of an EngHsh
look.

' But now the question is, How as to his mind ?
On this point, too, one hears much to his credit.
But these judgments are all more or less partial,
and until I have observed him longer, I can form
no judgment as to his capacity and the probable
development of his character. He is said to be
circumspect, discreet, and even now cautious. But
all this is not enougli. He ought not merely to
have great ability, but a ri^ht ambition, and a
great force of will as well. To pursue a political
career so arduous for a lifetime demands more
than energy and inclination — it demands also that
earnest frame of mind, which is ready of its own
accord to sacrifice mere pleasure to real usefulness.
If he is not satisfied liereafter with the conscious-
ness of having achieved one of the most influential
positions in Europe, how often will he feel tempted
to repent what he has undertaken ? If he does not
from the very outset accept it as a vocation of
grave responsibility, on the efficient fulfilment of
which his honour and happiness depend, there is
small likelihood of his succeeding.'

' Who,' he adds, ' should know more than myself
of the mystery of such a career ? who has tliought
over it so mucli, or had such experience of it?'
Well might he say so. It must have engaged his
thoughts from the hour when he first set foot
in England, with a view to the position and
duties of Prince Leopold as consort of a future
English Queen. It must liave cost him long-
meditation with reference to the Princess, who had
played about his knees, undreaining of the great

316 BARON STOCKMAR

future opened to her by the event which had
overthrown her uncle's hopes. And all its diffi-
culties, and all the high qualities of mind and heart
by which alone they could be met, must have
been brought home to him, as to no other man, by
the experience he had gathered in connection with
the creation of the Belgian kingdom, as well as by
what he foresaw of the rapid growth of democratic
tendencies in England. Till, therefore, he had
full means of observing the Prince's character, he
declined to commit himself If his scrutiny proved
satisfactory, his opinion was that the very first
thing to be done was to lay all the difficulties of
the undertaking fully before the Prince. If he
did not take fright at these, then two essential con-
siderations came immediately into play: (1) The
Prince must be educated for his future career
according to a careful plan, consistently carried
out, with constant reference to the special country
and people. (2) Before appearing as a suitor the
liking of the Princess must be secured, and upon
this liking, and this alone, the suit itself must be
based.

Witli his usual thoroughness, Stockmar at once
grappled with the question of the place where the
education of the future consort of an English
Queen could best be conducted. Coburg would
never do. Able tutors might not be wanting
there ; but what chance had the Prince of learning
what men are, or how to cope with them, at a

PRINCE ALBERT 317

small Court, where frank intercourse with other
men on equal terms was impossible ? Berlin,
Menna, the German Universities, were all un-
desirable. BerUn ? ' The thing of primary im-
portance, a just view of the present state of
Europe, would scarcely be acquired there.' The
Prince would hear everything there about politics
except the truth. Socially, too, the Berlin tone
was formal and priggish, and for Princes, at least,
not to be commended. All that could be learned
there would be the arts of administration and war,
but whatever was essential in these directions could
be learned elsewhere. Besides, profligacy in Berlin
was epidemic, and to keep young men out of
harm's way in this respect was harder there than
in any other place. Vienna ? That was no school
for a German Prince. The Universities ? Their
training was too one-sided and theoretical for a
Prince whose vocation would be to deal practically
with men and things on a great scale. Brussels
seemed to Stockmar to combine the most favour-
able conditions. The Prince would be there under
the eye and influence of his uncle, who was living
in tlie fiill stream of European politics, and work-
ing out the problem of constitutional government
where it had been hitherto unknown ; and whether
the English plan was brought to bear or not, the
I'rince would be far more likely to profit by the
study of politics in the free and stirring arena of a
constitutional kingdom, than in one where the

318 BARON STOC KMAR

whole machine of troverninent was propelled from
a monarchical centre. Tlie advice was followed,
and accordingly the Prince spent ten months in
1836-1837 with his brother in Brussels.

Before going there the young men had, along
with their father, visited the Duchess of Kent at
Kensington Palace. Already there were numerous
suitors in the field for the Princess's hand. The
time for introduction Stockmar therefore conceived
had arrived ; ' but,' he writes (p. 314), ' it must be
made a sine quti non, that the object of the visit be
kept secret from both the Prince and Princess, so
as to leave them completely at their ease.' The
desired impression was produced upon the Princess.
Having ascertained this, King Leopold lost no
time in making her aware of what was contem-
plated, and we have Her Majesty's assurance that
from that moment she never entertained the
thought of any other marriage.* It was not until

* What does Baron Ernst Stockmar mean by saying
('Merkwiircligkeiten,"" p. 330) that the Queen tells us in the
' Early Years ' ' she had never quite given up the idea of this
marriage,"' when Her Majesty's assurance that she never
dreamed of giving it up is absolute ? In the very next
sentence the Baron informs us that the Queen, in the begin-
ning of 1838, entrusted Stockmar with the duty of accom-
panying the Prince on his travels, with the express view of
assisting in the completion of his education. Her Majesty
may have hesitated as to the time for the marriage, and the
remarkable outburst of contrition on this subject in the
* Early Years ' (p. 220) is not likely to be forgotten ; but

ENGLISH JEALOUSY 319

March, 1838, however, that the King cominuni-
cated to the Prince what was proposed/' putting,
as Stockmar had suggested, the whole difficulties
of the position fully before him.

Meanwhile, in pursuance of the arrangement of
the pre\TL0us year, Stockmar arrived in England on
May 25, 1836, the day after the Princess attained
majority. William IV. had been in a critical state
since the 20th of that month, and on June 20 he
died. At this important juncture the counsel and
help of an adviser so wise and so experienced could
not be otherwise than most precious, f The out-
side world, always jealous of any influence near the
throne, became, of course, busy with insinuations
as to the mysterious presence in the Palace of this
foreign agent of a foreign King. That he was
doing work from the highest and most unselfish
motives, for which the nation's gratitude was really
due, was not likely to enter into the imagination of
the Quidnuncs of the club-houses, or the Sneer-
wells of poUtical circles. Lords Melbourne and

surely this fact is in itself a tolerably conclusive demonstra-
tion, that the hesitation extended no farther, although no
pledge had Ix^en given, and no cotnmunication on the subject
had passed between herself and the Prince.

- ' Early Years,' p. 217.

-)- Stockmar, in accordance with a rule he had long laid
down for himself, would accept of no appointment, although
he lent his active assistance to the youjig Queen as her secre-
tary, when the duties of that office could not be performed
by Lord Melbourne.

320 BARON STOCKMAR

Palmerston, the Premier and Foreign Minister,
had long known him, and appreciated the services
which he was especially fitted to render to the
young Queen. The former spoke of him to the
Queen as not merely ' a good man, but one of the
cleverest he had ever met,' and Lord Palmerston,
in conversation with Bunsen many years afterwards,
cited him as the ' only absolutely disinterested man
he had come across in life.' His influence, they
were well aware, could only be for good ; but Lord
Melbourne — Pococurante, as Stockmar aptly named
him — did not, it appears, much like the trouble of
having to explain the true state of matters to
captious members of his party, who taxed him with
being too much under the influence of the Belgian
King and his former Secretary. Things even went
so far that the Speaker, Mr. Abercromby, threat-
ened to bring what he called Stockmar's unconsti-
tutional position before the House. ' Tell him,'
was Stockmar's observation, 'to move in Parliament
against me if he likes : I shall know how to defend
myself.' On second thovights, Mr. Abercromby
happily dropped the subject, the agitation of which,
in that period of strong party passion, could not
have been otherwise than most inconvenient.
Stockmar's constant aim at this time — and this
was the only point in which Lord Melbourne and
himself could not agree — was to enforce the obvi-
ous, but hitherto much neglected, doctrine, which
had been acted on by Leopold in Belgium with

PRINCE ALBERT 321

marked success, that the monarch belongs to the
nation, and iniist never be made use of for the pur-
poses of party. What he saw of tlie conduct of
the Whigs in this respect, at that time and subse-
quently, was a source of deep vexation to him,
ominous, as he knew it to be, had it lasted, of the
most mischievous consequences.

In December, 1838, Stockmar accompanied
Prince Albert to Italy, and remained with him
tliere till May of the following year, when he left
him at Milan and returned to Coburg. In a memo-
randum quoted by his son (p. 331) the results of
his observation of the Prince during this time are
given. Read by the light of what the Prince
subsequently became, it possesses a singular in-
terest. The old physician's eye detected a weak-
ness of constitution, which made him shrink fi'oin
any sustained effort, either physical or mental.
* His constitution cannot be called strong. After
any exertion lie is apt to look for a time pale and
exhausted.' It was, no doubt, his knowledge of
this constitutional weakness which led Stockmar to
say, with prophetic truth, in 1844, to Bishop Wil-
berforce," ' If ever the Prince falls sick of a low
fever, you will lose him.' AVith this physical
drawback to contend against, the manner in whicli
the l*rince overcame the mental habits to which
Stockmar next draws attention, and which must

* See QmirUrly Review for October, 1867 ; article, ' Iloyal
Authorship."'

21

822 BARON STOCKMAR

have been in a great degree due to constitutional
delicacy, is most remarkable :

' Full of the best intentions and the noblest
resolutions, he often falls short in giving them
effect. His judgment in many things is beyond
his years ; but hitherto, at least, he shows not the
slightest interest in politics. Even while the most
important occurrences are in progress, and their
issues undecided, he does not care to look into a
newspaper.'

Stockmar's apprehension plainly was that there
was a want of thoroughness in the Prince's charac-
ter, as well as distaste for political affairs. Nor
can we doubt that what he had seen then, and
observed for some time afterwards, justified the
apprehension, and made him press upon the Prince
the necessity for such a discipline of his tastes and
habits as was calculated to overcome every defect
of natural inclination. How he triumphed, how
soon the Prince became remarkable for thorough-
ness in everything he touched, for an activity that
shrank from no fatigue, and for a mastery of
political questions unusual even with veteran
statesmen, needs not now to be told.

The strides made by the Prince in mastering the
tendencies which his Mentor dreaded were rapid.
So early as December, 1839, Stockmar writes to
the Baroness Lehzen : ' The more I see of him, the
more I lo\ e and esteem him. His intellect is so
sound and clear, his nature so unspoiled, so child-

BIRTH OF PRINCESS ROYAL 323

like, so predisposed to goodness as well as truth,
that time and intercourse with Englishmen of
experience, culture, and integrity are alone wanting
to make him truly distinguished.' He had soon
the satisfaction of seeing the admirable qualities of
his pupil — his fine judgment, tact, and moderation
— coming more and more to the surface under
the difficulties — and they were many — of his new
position. ]\Iuch had to be smoothed within the
Palace, and the hostility of political parties outside
had also to be reconciled. Here Stockmar's ex-
perience and influence with the leaders on both
sides were applied with the best results, and,
among other things, it was chiefly due to his inter-
vention with Wellington and Peel that the Bill
vesting the regency in the Prince passed, with
only the dissentient voice of tlie Duke of Sussex,
although a formidable opposition by the Tories on
one liand and the Ultra-I^iberals on the other,
fomented by some of the royal Dukes, was at one
time seriously apprehended.

The birth of the Princess Royal in November,
1840, found Stockmar again an inmate of the
Palace, after a short visit to his home. The
nursery department had to be organized, and in
this his medical skill and forethought were called
actively into play, and continued to be exercised
for many years. ' The nursery costs me as much
trouble,' he says in a letter, ' as the government of
a kingdom could do.' It was the same at a later

21—2

324 BARON STOCK MAR

period with the education of the royal children.
In everything it was the liabit of Stockmar's mind
to look far ahead — a course in which he was closely
followed by the I'rince Consort. Questions of
importance were fully discussed long before they
became pressing, and principles of action adopted,
which it was thenceforth easy to pursue to a
definite end. A glimpse is given of his masterly
and exhaustive manner in an extract quoted in the
' Merkwiirdigkeiten ' from a plan which he drew up
so early as the beginning of 1842 for the education
of the Prince of Wales and the Princess Royal.
But dealing, as this extract does, with merely
general principles, it gives only a partial view of
the writer's power, which was not less remarkably
shown in his breadth of view, than in the skill with
which this was worked out into practical details.
The Queen has placed upon record her gratitude
for this portion of his services in the ' Early Years '
(p. 188), where Her Majesty says she ' can never
forget the assistance given by the Baron to the
young couple in regulating their movements and
general mode of life, and in directing the education
of their children.'

Every day drew closer the ties which bound the
Baron to the royal household. 'The Prince,' he
writes in October, 1841, 'waxes apace morally and
politically. I can truly say he is dear to me as a
son, and he deserves to be so.' Again, on his return
to England in April, 1843, from a winter residence

ESTIMATE OF PRINCE ALBERT 325

in Coburg, ' the Prince is well and happy, though
he frequently looks pale, worried, and weary. He
is rapidly showing what is in him. He has within
him a practical talent, which enables him to seize
at a glance the essential points of a question, like
the vulture that pounces on its prey and hurries off
with it to its nest.' After this we hear no more of
any misgivings as to lack of perseverance, or of
interest in politics. A letter in 1847 shows us into
what ten years of conscientious self-conquest and
severe discipUne had changed the youth from what
his ' guide, philosopher, and friend ' had found him
in 1836 :

* The Prince has made great strides of late. He
has obviously a head for politics, before whose
perspicacity even prejudices quickly give way,
which spring from education or want of experience.
Place weighty reasons before him, and at once he
takes a rational and just view, be the subject what
it may. He has also gained much in self-reliance.
His natural vivacity leads him at times to jump
too rapidly to a conclusion, and he occasionally
acts too hastily ; but he has grown too clear-
siglited to connnit any great mistakes. He will
now and then run against a post and bruise his
shins. But a man cannot be an experienced soldier
without having been in battle and getting a few
knocks, and, being what he is, small wounds, while
they make him cautious, will give him confidence
in himself That in these days of political discord
with France he should make great political mis-
takes is not probable, for he is thoroughly dis-
passionate, and he has so keen and sure an eye that

826 BARON STOCKMAR

he is not likely to lose his way and get into trouble.
His mind becomes every day more active, and he
devotes the greater part of his time to business
without a murmur ' (p. 466).

Not less interesting is what he says of the Queen
in the same letter :

* The Queen also improves greatly. She makes
daily advances in discernment and in experience ;
the candour, the love of truth, the fairness, the
considerateness, with which she judges men and
things are truly delightful, and the ingenuous self-
knowledge with which she speaks about herself is
amiable to a degree.'

For some time before these words were written
Stockmar had become satisfied that events were
impending which might alter the face of Europe.

* I foresee,' he says in the same letter, ' great re-
volutions.' On April 3 in the same year he had
written to Bunsen : ' I am more and more con-
vinced we are on the eve of a great political crisis.

' " Das Alte sturzt ; es jindert sich die Zeit,
Und neues Leben bli'iht aus den Ruinen.*''' "**

The events of 1848 soon came to prove the justice
of this forecast. They also brought Stockmar
directly for the first time into the public ranks of

* Stockinar's editor seems not to be aware that these lines,
which he prints as prose, are a quotation from Schiller's

* Wilhelm Tell,' Act IV., Scene 2 :

' The old reels to its fall ; the times are changing,
And new life bursts and blossoms from the ruins.'

UNIFICATION OF PRUSSIA 327

political life. AVhen the storm of February burst,
he was in Germany, and he threw himself with all
his energy into the heart of the movement there, in
the hope of advancing his long-cherished vision of
a united Germany. He appeared at the Diet as
the accredited representative of Coburg, and he had
even agreed to accept, upon certain conditions, the
office of Foreign INIinister. ' That would be a
happy choice indeed,' said Lord Palmerston, when
told of this by Bunsen. ' He is one of the best
political heads I have ever met with.'

Into all the tedious futilities of the then Teutonic
uphea\al this is no place to enter. Suffice it to
say, two points were from the first clear to Stock-
mar — viz., that union under Prussia was the end to
be aimed at, and that this result was not to be
reached by peaceful means, but only through a war
which should shut out Austria fi'om further inter-
vention in the affiiirs of Germany, and also extin-
guish the opposition of the smaller Principalities.
In these views he went far ahead of the best poli-
tical thinkers of his time. Amid every discourage-
ment, his faith in the ultimate accomplishment of
the end desired remained unshaken to the last.
Scarcely, however, could he have divined that it
would be reached so soon, and by such means ; least
of all, that an impulse so important was to be given
to it by the insane folly nursed by the principles of
Thiers, Guizot, and others, which, in prompting the
French invasion of 1870, drew togetlier into one

328 BARON STOCKMAR

focus, as nothing else could have done, the hitherto
incoherent elements of a Cxcrman nation.

It was at this period that Meyer first met Stock-
mar at Baron Bunsen's, in London ; and we are
indebted to the ' JNIemoir ' already quoted for the
following spirited sketch of him. He was then
fifty-nine :

'During breakfast Baron Stockmar was an-
nounced ; when he entered and sat down, he very
soon dominated the conversation — an active, de-
cided, slender, rather little man, with a compact
head, brown hair streaked with gray, a bold short
nose, firm yet full mouth, and, what gave a peculiar
air of animation to his face, with two youthful
flashing brown eyes, full of roguish intelligence and
fiery provocation. With this exterior the style of
his demeanour and conversation corresponded ; bold,
bright, pungent, eager, full of thought, so that,
amid all the bubbling copiousness and easy vivacity
of his talk, a certain purpose in his remarks and
illustrations was never lost sight of.'

When Stockmar found that nothing was to be
expected for Germany from Frederick William IV.,
he turned his hopes from that eloquent and irre-
solute visionary to the future Emperor and Empress,
then the Prince and Princess of Prussia. It was in
accordance with his views of the best interests of
both countries, that an alliance should be formed
between the Royal Houses of Prussia and England.
Our Princess Royal had been from childhood his
especial favourite ; and as he watched the develop-

LEAVES ENGLAND 329

ment of her unusual gifts and distinguished character
the advantages to Germany of having such a Prin-
cess for its future Queen became more and more
apparent. ' From her youth up I ha^e loved her,'
he ^\Tites, in February, 1858, a few days after her
marriage ; ' have always expected much from her,
and taken pains to be of service to her, I consider
her to possess unusual gifts — in many cases amount-
ing to inspiration.' It was with peculiar satisfac-
tion, therefore, that he saw his long-cherished wishes
for this aUiance happily realized ; and to the last he
took an almost paternal interest in the welfare of
this second generation of princely pupils, which was
met on their part with the warmest affection.

In the previous year, 1857, he had taken his fare-
well of the English Court, where he had so long
lived, using all his great gifts with rare unselfish-
ness, to guide, animate, instruct, and strengthen
others ; ' the beloved and trusted friend of all
beneath its roof, from the Queen to the humblest
member of her household.'* The Queen and
Prince were not aware that he was never to return.
But some weeks before his departure he announced
his intention, in a letter to King Leopold from
Windsor Castle, resigning into his old master's
hands the trust which he had so worthily fulfilled.

' In the spring of 1837,' he says, ' now, therefore,
twenty years ago, I came back to England, to assist

* ' Early Years,^ p. 188.

330 BARON STOCKMAR

tlie Princess Victoria, now Queen. This year I
shall be seventy, and 1 am no longer either physi-
cally or mentally equal to the laborious and ex-
hausting functions of a paternal friend, and an
experienced father-confessor. I must say good-bye,
and this time for ever. The lav^ of nature will
have it so. And well for me, that I can do this
with a clear conscience ; for I have worked as long
as I had power to work, for ends which cannot be
impugned. The consciousness of this is the reward,
which alone I was anxious to deserve, and my dear
master and friend, with full knowledge of the state
of matters here, and of those for whom I have
acted, gives me frankly and spontaneously from the
bottom of his heart the testimony that I have
deserved it.'

The tie, however, was not one to be broken by
absence. The most intimate communications by
correspondence continued to be kept up by those
he had left behind in England and in Belgium.
The Queen and Prince Consort saw him together
on two subsequent occasions, once at Babelsberg
in 1858, and again at Coburg in 1860. The habit
of sharing with this second father, not only his
thoughts on public questions, but his private joys
and sorrows, which had grown up through their
long years of personal intercourse, was continued by
the Prince Consort to the last. To him one of his
latest letters was addressed. ' I am terribly in want
of a true friend and counsellor,' writes the Prince ;
* and that you are that friend you may readily
understand.' In a month the Prince was dead.

This national loss seemed to Stockmar a death-

HIS DEATH 331

blow to the great purpose of his Mfe. ' A structure,
to use his own words, ' wliich was conscientiously
reared for the accomplishment of a great and
important object, with a devout sense of duty,
and the toilsome effort of twenty years, has been
shattered to its foundation.' In 1862 the widowed
Queen sought the good old man at Coburg. ' My
dear, good Prince !' he exclaimed, ' how happy I
shall be to see him again ! and it will not be long.'
And it was not long. On July 9, 1863, death
brought his wearied spirit the release for which it
had long been yearning.

The pains of weakness and age had for some
years pressed heavily upon him, and added to the
melancholy from which not even the retrospect of
a well-spent life could protect him. It is sad to
read in one of his latest letters to the King of the
Belgians such words as these : * I confess I was not
prepared for so comfortless an old age. Often,
Aery often, I am on the verge of despair. The
riddles of life grow daily more difficult to me.'
But such moods could only be the passing clouds
of a soul unusually sensitive and sympathetic, and
therefore unusually suffering, to which a lifelong
faith in the ultimate issue of all things for good,
under the directing hand of a benign Father, had
given a prevailing aspect of calmness and serenity.
' His reliance on the love and justice of God,' says
his friend Meyer, ' and on tlie goodness of the
human heart, never forsook him.'

332 BARON STOCKMAR

Mnltum. dilexit ; and it was cliaracteristic of the
depth as well as tenderness of his feelings, that his
loving nature, his sweet temper, his devotion to
his friends, were often little to be surmised under
what seemed, to those who did not know him well,
to be stoical reserve, or self-centred indifference.
Christian to the core, Love, Duty, Truth were the
mainsprings of his life, as they were the main-
springs of his influence. Thus it was, therefore,
that he not only did and counselled the doing of

' the right because it was the right,
In scorn of consequence,''

but men of all ranks, and of the most varied
opinions — Kings, Princes, diplomatists, politicians
— those with whom he differed no less than those
wdth whom he agreed, those whom he disliked no
less than those whom he admired — were so con-
scious that he had no ends of his own to serve, and
that he w^as thoroughly to be relied on for fairness,
for reticence, and for directness, that they caught
in their dealings with him something of his own
spirit, and yielded to him a confidence w^hich they
never had occasion to regret.

' If a young man just entering into life,' are his
own beautiful words in a letter of his later years,
* were to ask me. What is the chief good for which
it behoves a man to strive ? I could only say to
him. Love and Friendship ! Were he to ask me,
What is a man's most priceless possession ? I

DID GOOD BY STEALTH 333

must answer, The consciousness of having loved
and sought the truth, of having yearned after what
is good for its own sake ! All else is either mere
vanity or a sick man's di-eam.'

It was only consistent with this creed that,
looking back in his last days on what he had done,
well appreciating its importance, and not imcon-
scious of the worldly honour and reputation which,
had his aim been personal ambition, it would have
been easy for liim to achieve, he should have no
feeling of regret for the course he had early chosen
and deliberately pursued, of livmg for others and
not for himself

' The singularity of my position,' he says. ' re-
quired me anxiously to efface myself, and to con-
ceal, as though it were a crime, the best purposes
I had in view, and frequently carried out. Like
a thief in the night, I placed with liberal hand the
seed within the earth, and when the plant grew up,
and became visible to otlier people, it was my duty
to ascribe the merit to others, and no other course
was open to me. ... If circumstances and men
commonly combine so as to \eil tlie best of my
conceptions and ideas, and the enterprises based
upon them, in darkness and niglit, tliat it is impos-
sible to form the faintest conception as to the
source from which they truly sprang, this will not
cause me any great vexation.'

In the eyes of such a man, not the doer, but tlie
work done, if worthy in itself and in its fruits, was
the all in all. He had shuimed the glare of the

334 BARON STOCKMAR

world's honours through hfe. Was it Ukely that, in
the contemplation of a greater Hereafter, he should
sigh for the empty glories of a posthumous fame ?

A letter to me, dated April 18, 1872, from
the late M. Silvain Van de Weyer, the Belgian
Ambassador, written on reading this sketch of Stock-
mar, when it appeared in the Quarterly Review, has
a special value, as no one knew Stockmar, both as
diplomatist and as friend, more intimately than
M. Van de Weyer, himself one of the most sagacious
and acute of observers.

' Dear Mr. Martin,

' I cannot tell you with what delight I have
read your admirable article. I have read it tlm'ee
times most attentivelij. I like its high moral and
religious tone, so perfectly consonant with my old
and revered friend's character. . . . The duration
of Stockmar's influence will be explained by the
principles which he laid down in one of my
numerous confidential conversations with him : '* If
you are consulted by Princes to whom you are
attached, give your opinion truthfully, boldly,
without reserve or reticence. Should your opinion
not be palatable, do not, to please or conciliate
them, deviate for a moment from what you think
the truth. You may, in consequence, be some
time out of favour, treated with neglect or cold-
ness. Never mind it, and when they come back
(for come back they will, if you remain honest and
firm) never complain of the treatment you have
received ; never beg to make them own how right

M. VAN DE WEYER ON STOCKMAR 335

you were, and how wrong they have been. It
must be enough for you that they should, for their
good and the good of the country, act upon the
principles, the soundness of which is thus acknow-
ledged."

' Another point remains still unexplained. How
is it, will a thoughtful reader ask, that Stockmar
had such a permanent influence upon men so
different in so many respects as Lord Aberdeen,
Lord JNIelbourne, the Duke of Wellington, Lord
Palmerston, Sir Robert Peel, etc. ? It was not
only because they recognised his great political
ability, but also because they all felt that they
were in safe hands, that he would never betray
them, show up their foibles, their errors, their
faults, play off one political man against another,
join in any back-stair intrigue, or avail himself of
his position to imdermine them in the opinion of
their Sovereign or the public, and diminish their
political usefulness. How many instances I could
quote of the support given by him to men that he
disliked the most ! 15ut the time for such revela-
tions is not come.

' However concealed, the tenderness of his heart,
his loving nature, and his sweet temper, his devo-
tion to his friends under a stoical appearance
deceived none of those who knew him well ; and
to know him was to love liim. Excuse this long
note,

' And believe me,

' Yours very sincerely,

' SiLVAiN Van de Weyer.'

INDEX

Actors, their influence, 99-101
Addenbrooke Colonel, 280
Albert, Prince, Stockmar's opinion
of, in 188G, 314 ; studies at
Brussels, 317 ", visit to England,
318 ; tour in Italy, 321 ; Stock-
mar's estimate of, in 1847, 325 ;
liis last letter to Stockmar,
death, 330

BaillieDr., 291,293

Betterton, 25, 27, 37

Betty William Henry AVest, im-
mense popularity, Mac ready's
admiration of, 12(5, 127, 148

Birch Mr., inaster at Rugby,
125

Blissetton Kalstaff, 122

Boaden, ' Life of Garrick,' 5, G

Booth, actor, 25, 31

Bracegirdle Mrs. Anne, C'olley
Cibber extols Garrick to her, 29

Brouzet Madame, 205

Brown Dr., his plays, 65

Bulwer Sir Edward Lytton, his
' Lady of Lyons,' 111 ; Money,
112 ; 'Richelieu,' 177 ; presides
at farewell dinner to Mr. Mac-
ready, 187

Bunsen Chevalier, 187, 188

Burney Dr., on Mr. and Mrs.
Garrick's home-life, 47

Burke Edmund, 38

Bute Lord, letter from Garrick
to as to Home's ' Douglas,' 62,
63

Camden Lord, 38

Carlyle, Jupiter, Dr., 43, 61
C'hamplon journal, the, favourable
report on (Jarrick's iirst appear-
ance in London, 23, 24
Cibber, Colley, his adaptation of

'Richard HI.,' 29, 31
( ibber, Mrs. Susannah, 76
(^lairon, Madame, 75, 102, 104
Clive, Kitty, Mrs., at Drury Lane,
50, 52 ; letters to Garrick, 53,
83, 84
Colman, George, 124
Congreve's ' Old Batchelor,' 29
Cooke, George Frederick, 106,

107
Cornwall, Barry, on Macready as

' Rob Roy,' 162
C'remieux, M. and Madame, be-
friend Rachel, 213-215, 232
Croft, Sir Richard, 292 ; his sad
end, 293

Daily Post the, favourable report

on Garrick's first appearance in

London, 23
Davies, his ' Life of Garrick,' 4, 5 ;

on Garrick's first appearance on

the stage, 22
Devonshire, Duke of, 38
Duport Paul, Rachel's appearance

in his drama, 'La Vendeenne,'

202

Emery, in the 'Yorkshire Farmer,'
149 ; as Tyke in the ' School of
Reform,' 150

Farren Old, 136

336

INDEX

337

Faucit, Miss Helen, in the ' Lady
of Lyons,' 111; in 'Money,'
112 ; Macready's opinion of,
reported by Mrs. S. C. Hall,
172 ; engajjed by ^V^ebster at
the Hay market, 179

Fawcett, comedian, lo.3, 136

Felix Rebecca, Rachel's favourite
sister, lier talents and early
death, 24<J

Felix Sarah, 245

Foote, his admiration of Mrs.
Garrick, 48 ; his farce, ' Taste,'
49 ; his duplicity, t)8, 70

Forster Mr. .folni, notice of
Garrick's letters, (! ; in his ' Life
of Goldsmith,' 3(5 ; injustice to
Garrick, 70

Garrick, David, Johnson's feelings
towards, and opinion of, 1-4 ; his
correspondence, .5, (> ; birth and
parentage, 7, 8 ; with his uncle
at Lisbon, 9 ; death of uncle, 10 ;
at Samuel Johnson's academy
at Edial ; his profession, the
Bar, chosen, 12 ; studies under
Rev. Mr. C'olson at Rocliester,
16 ; returns to Lichfield, in
wine business with his brother
Peter there and in London,

16 ; Macklin's attitude towards
him, 16 ; early literary efforts,

17 ; leanings towards the stage,
appearance as Aboan at Ipswich,
20 ; first appearance in London,
at (ioodman's Fields, and
success, 22, 23 ; triumph as
Richard III., 2") ; appreciation
of, by Pope, 2(), 27 ; also by Mrs.
Porter, Duke of Argyll, and
Lord Cobham, 27 ; offered share
in management of (Joodman's
Fields theatre, 27; ( olley
( ibbcr's praise, 29; advice of
Rev. T., afterwards Hisliop,
Newton, 30 ; his infinite variety,
31 ; bis IvCar a vht-f-'Cwnrre, 32 ;
breaks the news of his going on
the stage to liis family, 34 ; their
disapproval, 3.'> ; encounigcment
of Rev. T. Newton, 37 ; plays
ill Dublin, 3'J ; Hamlet at

Drury Lane, 40 ; fascinated by
Peg \\'offingtou, but disillu-
sioned, 42 ; his courtship and
marriage, 45 ; happiness of
married life, 47, 48 ; portrait
of him and Mrs. Garrick by
Hogarth, 49 ; becomes patentee
of Drury Lane Tbeatre, 49 ;
chooses for his company the
best actors, 50 ; enthusiasm and
hard work, 51, 52 ; letter to him
from Mrs. Clive, 53 ; worried by
slanders, 54, 55 ; overworked,
goes abroad, 56 ; advice to
Powell, the actor, 57, 58 ; troubles
with authors, 59, 60 ; difficulties
as to choice of plays, 61 ; Home's
'Tragedy of Douglas,' 61 ; letter
to Lord Bute, 62-64 ; alterations
and restoration of text of Shakes-
peare, <)6 ; sympathy with men
of letters, 68 ; his generosity,
(59 ; secret of his greatness,
■ 74 ; letter to C lairon, 75 ; his
"^health suffers, 77 ; Lichten-
berg's description of his acting,
,79-81 ; his physical suflerings

^ iuSrease, 82 ; disposes of his
interest in Drury Lane, retires,
83 ; last appearance, 85 ; fare-
\\ell address, 86, 87 ; his many
friends, 88, 89 ; his death, 90';
detailed account of his funeral,
!H)-98

Garrick David, grandfather, his
parentage ; escape fiom France,
7 ; family, 8

Garrick Madame, grandmother,
her escape from France, abjura-
tion of lier faith and recantation,
7,8

(iarrick David, uncle, 8-10

(iarrick Peter, father, 7 ; his voca-
tion, marriage, and family, 8 ;
growing anxieties, 10 ; with his
regiment at Gibraltar, 10; re-
turns homo, death, and death
of his wife, 11

(iiffanl, his theatre in (ioodman's
Kields, 25 ; offers share in
management to (iarrick, 27 ;
forced to close his theatre,
3!)

338

INDEX

Girardin Madame, her Judith
idayed by Rachel, 241 ; letter
to, from ilachel, 242

Gray, the poet, 28 ; his opinion of
(Jarriik, 28

Grimm Baron, on Garrick, 94, 95

Ilardenbroek liaron, 28(5, 288

Harris, Mr., manager of Covent
Garden, lo.3

Heylli M. Creorges d', his biog-
raphy of Rachel, 194

Hoadley Dr., 42

Holywell, St Winifred's Well, 124

Home, his ' Tragedy of Douglas,'
Gl, 62 ; Garrick's opinion of it,
62-64 ; want of success in
London, 65

Hugo Victor, Rachel's first meet-
ing with, 197

Hunt Leigh, criticism of Mrs.
Jordan, 145 ; of Macready, 164

Janin Jules, his criticism of
Rachel, 202, 211

Johnson, Dr., his feeling towards,
and opinion of, Garrick, 1-4 ;
attitude toAvards him, 71, 72 ;
his i>lay of ' Irene,' 72 ; no judge
of acting, 73-78; grief at
Garrick's death, 91

Jordan, Mrs., described by Mac-
ready, 145

Journal des Debuts on Rachel, 212

Kean, Edmund, at Birmingham,

130 ; his triumphs at Drury

Lane, 149, 151, 153

Kemble, Charles, 149, 158, 162, 172

Kemble, John, 133, 136, 168 ; his

last performances, 159, 160 ;

Ludwig Tieck's description of;

farewell banquet to him, 186

Kemble, Mrs. Fanny, on Rachel's

genius and voice, 239
King as Lord Ogleby, 121
Knowles, Sheridan, his comedy of
' W^oman's Wit and Love's Dis-
guises,' 175

Lacy, along with Garrick, patentee
of Drury Lane Theatre, 49

Le Kain, 99, 103, 105
Lewis, W. T., comedian, 121
Lichtenberg on Garrick, 79

Macklin, his criticism on Garrick's
Lear, 32 ; de])uty manager at
Drury Lane, 40
iVLicrea'dy the elder, his farce,
119 ; liistlieatreat Birmingham,
121 ; Lord Nelson present, 122 ;
liis theatre at Bolton-le-Moors,
123 ; at Manchester his theatre
a failure, 131 ; in prison for
debt, ] 34 ; release, 1 35 ; theatres
at Glasgow and Dumfries, 147
Macready, ^\llliam Charles, his
disparagement of the actor's
art, 107 ; his Reminiscences and
Diaries, 108 ; his egotism. 111 ;
and vanity, 116; birth and
parentage, 119 ; his education,
120; sets out for Rugby, 125;
joins in jdays acted at Rugby,
126-128 ; his boyish recitations,
129, 130 ; his father's bank-
ruptcy, decides to go on the
stage, 131 ; becomes actor and
iTianager, 133 ; goes to London,
183 ; sees many good actors,
134 ; works in earnest, success at
Newcastle, 134 ; his debut at Bir-
mingham, 136, 137 ; acts with
Mrs. Siddons, 140; his enthu-
siastic admiration of hei', 141 ;
Mrs. Siddons' advice, 143 ; praise
of Mrs. Jordan, 145 ; revival
of ' Richard II.,' 14() ; his popu-
larity at Glasgow, 117, HB ;
parts from his father, 146 ;
works loyally for him, 149 ;
fresh disputes, 153 ; his impres-
sions of Kean and Miss O'Neill,
153-15(> ; appearance at ( ovent
Garden, 157 ; in 'The Apostate,'
159 ; reminiscence of Kean's
last performance, 160, 161 ;
admirable as a critic, 1(51 ; suc-
cess in ' Rob Roy,' 162 ; as
a Shakespearian actor, 163 ; his
triumph as Richard III., 164 ;
his marriage, 166 ; visits Italy,
engagement in Paris, 167 ; fret-
ful state of mind, 167-170 ; the

INDEX

339

Buun incident, en^ag-emeut at
Covent Garden, 170, 171 ; un-
dertaken management of Covent
Garden Theatre, moderate suc-
cess, 173 ; second season a
brilliant one, a strong company,
177 ; end of season : wild entliu-
siasm at Covent Garden and at
Freemasons' Tavern, 17B, 17'J ;
at the Haymarket, 17!» ; takes
lease of Drury Lane, IBO ; ' Acis
and Galatea ' a great success,
180 ; plays which insured suc-
cess of season, 181 ; suddenly
retires from Drury I^ane, 182 ;
visits to America, 18;>, 184 ;
serious riots, 18.") ; returns
to England, farewell engage-
ments, IBo ; no regret at leaving
the stage, 185 ; public diiuier,
187 ; residence at Sherborne,
and death at Clieltenham, 188 ;
beautiful old age, 187-1!)2

Mars Mademoiselle, 207, 210

Meyer Herr, on Stockmar, 277,
279

Monthly Review, the, Goldsmith's
opinion of Home's ' Douglas,' (5o

Monvel, great French tragedian,
father of Mademoiselle Mars,
208, 210

Murphy, liis ' Life of Garrick,'
spirit of, 4, 5, 59, 68, ()9, 78

Musset, Alfred de, letters on
Rachel, 224

Necker Madame, on Garrick,

74
Nelson Lord, at elder Macready's

theatre at l'>inningliam, 121-123
Newton, Rev. 'i"., 27 ; his advice

to (iarrick, ;}0, .'31 ; his approval

of Ills going on the stage, 37
Nidiolas, future Cziir, Stockmar's

description of, 284

O'Neill Miss, 13G, 153, 15(5, 158,
162, 254

Pitt Mr., afterwards I^ord Cliat-
ham, high praise of (Jarrick, 35

I'oliock I.,adv, her ' Macready as
1 knew Iliin,' HI, 192

Pope goes to see Garrick as
Richard 111., 25

Porter Mrs., actress, admiration
of Garrick, and prophecy of
his ^eatness, 2"

Powell, actor in Garrick's com-
pany, his popularity, 5(j ; letters
of advice from Garrick, 57, 58 ;
deserts Ciarrick's theatre, and
death, 59

Preville, Garrick's praise of, 75,
103

Princess Cliarlotte, her marriage
with Prince Leopold of Saxe-
Coburg, 281 ; Stockmar's im-
pressions of, 2H0 ; her married
life, 291 ; her death, 294

Prince Leopold, his marriage with
Princess Charlotte, 281 ; Stock-
mar his physician, 281 ; the
Claremont household, 286 ; the
Prince universally admired, 287,
288 ; liappy married life, 290 ;
deatli of Princess Charlotte, 294 ;
his grief, Stockmar's promise to
remain with him through life,
295 ; offered, and agrees to
accept, Crown of (ireece, 300;
withdraws acceptance, 30 ; offer
of lielgian ( rown, 303 ; accepts,
.and as King makes Stockmar
his chief counsellor, 308
Pritchard Mrs., at Drury Lane,
50, 113

Quin, 28, 56

Rachel, deep regret felt at her
death, 193; birth, parents, 196;
hardsliips in youth, 1!)7 ; pupil
of M. (boron ; M. St. Aulaire
recognises hergenius, she studies
under him, ]!)8; makes rapid
progress, 199; impresses iVL
Samson, 200 ; admitted to Con-
servatoire, 201 ; leaves it, is
engaged by M. Poirson, makes
lier (l('l>ut at the (iyrnnase, 202 ;
studies under M. Samson, makes
her debut at the Theatre Fraa-
(,ais as Caniille, 204; i)raise of
Mademoiselle Mars, 207-210 ;
wonderful success, 210; Her-

22—2

340

INDEX

mione her first great part, 212 ;
Jules! Janin's enthusiasm, 212;
M. and Mdme. Crdmieux lier
friends, 213 ; in Roxane turns
failure to triumphant success,
217-220 ; lier personal appear-
ance, 221 ; Alfred de Musset's
account of her, 228-2ol ; at
Madame Recamier's salon, 233 ;
in London, 233 ; reception at
Her Majesty's 'ITieatre, 236 ;
in society, 237 ; at Windsor
Castle, 238 ; letters from Duke
of AVellington, 231), 240 ; suc-
cess in the French provinces,
240 ; advice to her brother,
243 ; ingratitude of her family,
245 ; her sister Rebecca's early
deatli, 240 ; Rachel's moral
lapse, 247 ; Phoedre her greatest
triumph, 2ol ; pathos of her
'Adrienne Lecouvreur,' 253; no
talent for comedy, 25(5 ; temp-
tation of wealth, 257 ; enormous
gains, especially at St. Peters-
burg, 257 ; at tlie Imperial
Palace, 258-260 ; failing liealth,
260; collapse in America, winter
in Egypt, at Cannet, 2(53 ; her
last days, 266 ; death, 267
Recamier Madame, 233
Riccot>oni Madame, 47, 48
Rlickert Friedrich, poet, his
friendship with Stockmar, 277,
278

8t. Aulaire, M., of the t'omedie
Francaise, 1!)7

Samson, M., Rachel's teacher, 193-
199 ; pupils of, 205

Sand (reorges, 228

Sheil Lalor, his play 'The Apos-
tate,' Macready in, 158

Shraeder, actress, 113, 114

Siddons, Mrs. 5-5, 56, 121, 134,
140-145, 160, 254

Stacl Madame de, on Talma, 73

Stockmar Baron Christian Fried-
rich von, his unambitious great-
ness, 272, 273 ; influence on
the Royal Houses of Belgium
and England, 274, 275 ; birth,
still young when father died.

mother's character, 275, 276 ;
at Coburg Gynniasium, and
studies medicine at M iirzburg,
Erlangen, and Jena, 276 ; his
great gift of diagnosis, 277 ;
practises physic at Coburg, 280 ;
official appointment, charge of
military hospital, 280 ; serious
attack of typhus, 280 ; Staff
Physician to hospitals, encoun-
ter with Baron Stein, 281 ;
appointed Physician to Prince
Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, 281 ; ar-
rival in London, 282 ; bad health,
tits of hypochondria, 282 ; intro-
duction to Princess Charlotte,
impressions of her, 289, 290 ;
refuses to act as her physician,
291 ; his sympathy with Prince
Leopold cemented on her death,
appointed his Private Secretary
and C'Ontroller of his house-
hold, 2!)7 ; marriage with his
cousin, 298 ; makes home for
her at Coburg, Prince Leopold's
indebtedness to him, 299 ; ad-
vice as to acceptance of Crown
of Greece, 300 ; and of Belgium,
304, 305 ; accompanies King to
Brussels, 305 ; King's confi-
dential agent in London, 307,
308 ; conducts negotiations on
liis behalf as to the C^rown of
Belgium, 311 ; at his home at
C'oburg, 312 ; negotiates mar-
riage of Prince Ferdinand with
Queen Donna Maria of Portu-
gal, 312 ; becomes confidential
adviser to Princess, afterwards
Queen, Victoria, 314 ; advice as
to Prince Albert's education,
317, 318 ; English jealousy of
his position and influence, 319 ;
accompanies Prince Albert to
Italy, 321 ; results of observa-
tion of the Prince, 321, 322 ;
letter to tlie Baroness Lehzen,
322, 323 ; at the palace on the
occasion of the birth of the
Princess Royal, 323 ; scheme
for education of the Royal
children, 324 ; his estimate of
Prince Albert, 325 ; and of the

INDEX

341

Queen, o2fi ; at C'oburg at time
of German troubles, representa-
tive at Diet, 827 ; unification
of Prussia to be aimed at, ^'27 ;
alliance of Princess Royal with
Prussian Prince his cherislied
wish, o2'J ; farewell to England,
.'329 ; Queen and Prince Con-
sort's visits to him, S'SO ; one of
Prince's latest letters to liim,
o30 ; widowed Qi^^en visits liim
at Coburg, his death, 381 ;
letter about him from M. Syl-
vain \'^an de \Veyer, 335

Talfourd Serjeant, his 'Glencoe/
179

Talma, 103, 206, 223, 2o(;

Theatrical Fund, benefit of. Gar-
rick's last appearance, 85

Tieck Ludwig, his criticism of
Macready, 159 ; his account of
.rohn Kemble's farewell, 18(;

Troughton Zouch, his ' Nina
Sforza^' 179

Varenne, M. de, on Rachel's first
appearance at the Tlieatre Fran-
(,-ais, 208

Veigel Eva Maria, arri\al in
England, 43 ; her fame, UTider
protection of Countess of Rur-
lington, marriage with Garrick,
■i'i ; uniform testimony as to

her charms, 40, 47 ; portrait of,
by Hogarth, 48 ; testimonies to
her worth, 87, 88
Victoria, Queen, birth, and early
childliood at Claremont, 299 ;
IStockmar her confidential ad-
viser, 314 ; projected marriage
with Prince Albert, 818 ; birth of
Princess Royal, 323; gratitude
for services of Stockmar, 324 ; re-
gret at his leaving England, cor-
respondence with him frequent,
330 ; visits him at Coburg, 331

^V'almsley Gilbert, befriends Gar-
rick. 11, 12, 13

AValpole Horace, 29-31, 47-55,
GO, 61, 73

V\'arburton, Dr., 38

\V ebster Mr. Renjamin, manager
of Haymarket Theatre, 112, 179

A\'hittock Mrs., sister of John
Kemble, her love of the stage,
139

AVilkinson Tate, 55, 59

' Winter's Tale,' the, Garrick's
alteration of, 66

\Voffingtou Peg, at Drury Lane,
40, 41 ; again in Garrick's com-
pany, 50

^V'ooll Dr., lieadmaster of Rugby,
128

Young Charles, 150, 152, 158, 162

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